Cursed Blessing
by Kainos Ktisis
Summary: Blessed with a heart never to love, Kagome finds it hard to harden her resolve against one who is cursed until he finds love. AU InuKag. On hold indefinitely.
1. Provincial Life

**A/N**: So I finally got the initiative to write an Inuyasha fic after watching Beauty and the Beast a couple of nights ago with my sister. Anyway, I know there are a bunch of B&B-changed-into-Inu-fics floating around out there (and a couple of really good ones too), but I just couldn't resist. Mainly because Beauty and the Beast is my favoritest Disney movie ever! Anyway, I haven't seen any with this particular twist yet, so I hope you peoples likey.

Oh yeah, this is also my first fic ever, so please tell me what you think!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me (and probably fortunately for everyone else...), I don't own either Inuyasha or Beauty and the Beast.

* * *

**Cursed Blessing**

**Prologue**

"Kikyo! Are you alright? What happened? You're bleeding all over!" exclaimed the more-than-frightened eight-year-old. Using her small body as a crutch for her sister to lean upon, Kaede slowly helped her sister stumble towards a stone bench near the entrance of their humble home.

By the time they made it over to the bench, Kaede's clothes were soaked through with a warm, crimson liquid, and they left a bloody trail where they had tread. A pool of dark red substance gathered at the stone floor beneath them as Kikyo rested all her body weight upon her sister.

The little girl tried in vain to keep the well of tears behind her eyelids but the sight of her older sister in such obvious pain was too much for her to bear. "What happened?" she squeaked between sobs. "I thought you went to see Inuyasha."

Kaede shrank back in fear when she saw the hatred pour out of her beloved sister's eyes and heard the bitter spite in her voice. "Do NOT ever mention his despicable name again. He a cursed beast: a vile, back-stabbing, cowardly dog that doe not deserve to breathe lest he corrupts the very atmosphere. He is evil, little sister. Do not go near him or speak of him."

Kaede was confused, to say the least. She'd never seen Inuyasha before but her older sister used to talk of him in such fond tones that she was positive they were in love, whatever _that_ meant. But now, Kikyo had such a vicious expression pass over her face that Kaede knew in her heart that whatever had happened, Kikyo must have been in the right and Inuyasha in the wrong.

"Of course, sister. I understand. Let me go get some herbs to alleviate your pain."

The priestess-in-training turned to go, but a weak hand held her still. "No, Kaede. It is too late for me. I know that my time is up."

"No, no it's not. I can help you. You can't die, Kikyo. Please."

She merely shook her head in response. "Listen to me, Kaede." Her tone of voice was enough to stop the quivering of the younger girl for just a moment. "Kneel before me."

Kaede did as she was told as Kikyo securely placed a soft leather mask that covered the area from her hairline to below her cheekbone over her face. On the mask were symbols and letters of magic that glowed faintly indigo before being completely absorbed into the leather.

"I give this command and blessing to you and to all those who succeed you as priestess: Never are you to remove this mask for fear of your very life. Only if a man is willing to give his life to you may you remove it. Never shall a drop of tear fall from your eyes for the account of a man or else face the rest of your life without your powers. May your hearts be hardened to those who wish to gain your love. May you never fall into the same deceit that I have, for all men are loathsome brutes who are undeserving of our affections. I bid you to pass this on to all those who succeed you as priestess. Do this and I shall die in peace."

Without a moment's hesitation, Kaede replied with her head bowed, "As you wish, sister."

She received no reply and dread filled her whole being. Lifting her head slowly, Kaede could barely make out the faint words of "goodbye, my love" upon Kikyo's lips before her sister slipped into the grips of death. Somehow, she knew that the love Kikyo referred to was Inuyasha, even though in her last moments she had placed a blessing upon her successors because of the said man's betrayal of her.

But no matter what had transpired between the two, Kaede would do as her sister commanded her.

* * *

**Chapter One: Provincial Life**

"Stupid mask. I hate wearing this dumb thing," muttered Kagome Higurashi angrily under her breath as she tugged lightly at the edges of the light brown leather. She had worn it for three years now, and it nearly felt like a second skin, but it still managed to annoy her to no end. It wasn't as if she was vain or anything. In fact, she had quite nearly forgotten what she looked like. But the mere fact that it was there made her feel so restricted and trapped in the responsibilities that she knew she must carry out as priestess.

Still, she sighed as she adjusted her kimono—her favorite one, cream-colored with a large lavender orchid pattern—in front of her full-length mirror in preparation of the party.

It was going to be her eighteenth birthday today. It was also the third-year anniversary of her becoming a true priestess, mask and all.

Whoopee...feel her joy...

Initially, like all new priestesses, Kagome was ecstatic of her success. It wasn't easy to complete the training necessary to become a priestess and not everyone had the innate abilities that Kagome possessed. Not only did she complete the training in a record time of merely four years, but her mentor originally had not wanted to even accept her due to the fact that she was already much older than the norm of six years old. And of course, it only made matters worse that there were rumors that she only completed the course due to the fact that she held an alarming resemblance to the current priestess' deceased elder sister.

However, all that changed when everyone saw the natural capabilities she had with her strong spiritual powers, and she soon became the most-prized priestess-in-training.

So of course she was excited when she "graduated." After all, who wouldn't be?

But that excitement quickly morphed into boredom as she realized how tedious a priestess' job truly was, not to mention the annoying mask she had to vow to wear for the rest of her life. Don't get her wrong, she loved helping the sick and playing with the children and all that good stuff, but sometimes everything just felt so damn monotonous sometimes that she couldn't help but wonder what could have been if she had never become a priestess.

After all, day in and day out, she did the exact same thing over and over again with few changes. Rarely did any demons appear nor was there ever any large blight on the land—not that she wished that there would be more, of course; in fact, there have been no demon sightings in the last fifty years. All she really got to do was care for the sick and elderly or pretty much baby-sit the village children. She could do nothing about it, for this was the cost for being the priestess of a small shrine in a small village in a small province.

There was no reason for anything to happen and thus nothing ever happened here.

Until one fateful night, that is.

Everything was like normal that night: the same little townspeople with the same little dishes with the same fake smiles and the same cliché words of congratulations. Everything was done with such a sickening sense of familiarity that it made Kagome's stomach turn with disgust.

_God...there has _got _to be something more than this provincial life, _she thought with a hint of despair. She had never quite fit in, even among the other candidates for priestess-hood, and somehow, she knew that this was not where she was meant to be.

Kaede had asked her once if she was truly ready to become a priestess for life and Kagome hadn't hesitated for a split second to assure the old woman that she was indeed ready. Of course, Kaede had gone on, saying how there was no turning back from this decision and that if Kagome wanted to back out, no one would think any less of her honor.

Sounded more like a freakin' guilt trip than a reassurance if you asked her.

Still, she was determined to become a priestess and was more than willing to give up everything in order to do so. And thus she became the nineteenth priestess of this particular shrine and the second to follow—who is thought to be—one of the greatest priestesses, Kikyo.

And though she wasn't entirely satisfied with her priestess-hood, Kagome never regretted that choice and—given the opportunity for a second chance—she would have chosen the same path.

It was dinner time, and her face muscles were growing tired at having to hold up a plastered smile the whole day. At first, it had been quite genuine, but even someone as good-natured as Kagome could only smile for so long before her muscles cramped. And although she did think that it would be quite amusing if she got stuck that way, it was not something she wanted to happen.

Pathetic, but amusing.

There was music going and several couples had already congregated around the large bonfire in the center of the village. They were all laughing and having the time of their lives...except, of course, the one for whom the party was thrown for in the first place.

Quite a few young men had already asked if Kagome wanted to dance with them but she declined, swearing that she wasn't feeling well enough to dance but that she would make it up to them later.

Ha! Yeah, right, suckers...

No one seemed to realize that she could not fall in love with anyone, not that there was anyone in her village she wanted to fall in love with.

However, there was one man in particular who just didn't know when to give up. Hojo Endo. Now this was one persistent little feller. He'd been after Kagome for years, now, and he just couldn't seem to catch a clue that she wasn't interested or rather, she couldn't even if she was. The problem was that he was actually a really nice guy—dense but nice—and it was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid him without hurting him.

Though the longer she dragged this out, the more _she_ was getting exasperated.

"Oh crap," she mumbled under her breath as she saw him coming towards her with that goofy grin he always had. She pretended not to hear him calling out to her and turned the other way in a near-run.

Unfortunately, she ran straight into the worst possible person she could run into at that moment: Kouga Kikuchi.

She mentally groaned as Kouga's eyes lit up and wrapped his arms around her possessively. "Hey, sweet cheeks. After last time, I didn't expect you to come running back into my arms, not that I blame you. I know it's hard to resist my charms."

She pulled away none too gently and had to use all her willpower to restrain herself from knocking the smug little smirk that graced the face atop his wring-able neck. "Funny, Kouga," she said sardonically. Only one as oblivious as he or as thick as Hojo would have missed the dangerous note in her voice.

Just when she thought it couldn't get any worse, somebody—namely the author of this story, which just so happens to be me—thought it would be real comical to have Hojo catch up to her. "Hey Higurashi. What's up? You want to dance?"

As she moved her lips to respond, Kouga quickly put himself between her would-be suitor and growled in a very animalistic way. "Stay off, buddy boy. She's mine, you hear?"

Hojo looked confused for a minute before replying in a controlled but obviously angry tone, "Higurashi doesn't belong to anyone, Kouga."

Kagome was truly grateful for Hojo's interference, but she couldn't help but mentally berate him for what an idiot he was being, trying to stand up to Kouga. Everyone knew that Hojo was not known for his fighting capabilities while Kouga has won multiple awards simply for beating the shit of people. If this broke out into a fight, no one had any doubts that Kouga would come out the winner by a long, long mile.

Still, Hojo was either really brave or too stupid (Kagome was leaning towards the latter) to realize that his odds of winning were little to none and the chances of him coming out with less than five broken bones zero as he faced off Kouga.

Though it was tempting to let Hojo take a beating (she felt so cruel...), Kagome knew that it just wasn't right to let him take the brunt for her.

She stepped towards the two men and was about to say something when a staggering young man fell face down through the little crowd that had gathered around the spectacle and were hoping for a show. She immediately forgot everything else as she rushed over to his side and gently turned him over so that his face was looking towards the night sky.

She gave him a quick inspection and found four long claw marks raked diagonally across his chest though it was hard to see the source of the unplugged bleeding through the gore that gushed from his body. His left arm was broken in three places and his forearm was sticking out at an awkward position. Blood matted down his dark hair and she somehow knew that not all the blood was his. He had a pulse, but only faintly.

"My God...what happened?" she heard a voice in the crowd whisper in fear.

The man's eyes rolled back and Kagome swore under her breath as he began to convulse. Foam welled at his mouth and spilled down his chin, forming a puddle of saliva on the dirt floor.

"Help me hold him down and get something to put in his mouth so he doesn't bite his tongue off and kill himself! Hurry!" she commanded and immediately three sturdy bodies came to hold the man still while some women and children ran into their homes to grab blankets and cloaks. Somebody—she wasn't sure who—produced a thick paint brush and slipped the butt end into his mouth.

Reaching into the little pouch she always kept at her side, Kagome produced a small bottle of crushed leaves. Pouring some into her hand, she used her spit to mix it into a poultice and smeared it over the man's injuries. His back arched in pain the moment the mixture touched his skin, but he soon settled down and even his seizures calmed.

By this time, Kagome had several blankets handed to her. She placed them together as the men rolled him gently onto the makeshift stretcher and carried him to the little cottage Kagome lived in.

Once there, she went to the back room to raid her herbal jars while the men lay the injured man on the cot in the guest room. She came back holding handfuls of herbs, medicines, and bandages and got to work immediately. The three other men watched in fascination as she mixed herbs together to form a sort of clear, plaster-like substance that would prevent the man from ripping his injuries any further. Placing some on his broken arm as well, she bandaged it up like a cast which was, in fact, what she was doing.

She didn't say a word through the whole ordeal and it wasn't until her clothes and hands were all covered in blood and grime that she finally sighed and sat in a nearby chair, exhausted. The man had some of the worst injuries she had ever seen and it was not an easy job trying to sew up his severed flesh. As if noticing the other three men for the first time, Kagome quietly motioned that they could leave now and thanked them for their help.

She saw them to the door and took a deep breath before heading back into the room with the injured man.

"Well, I wanted something to happen and it looks like I got that wish," she muttered half-heartedly.

_Damn it! That was my favorite kimono too...wait, what am I thinking? Wow, are my priorities screwed up. Well, at least I got rid of Kouga and Hojo..._ That thought brought a smile to her face.

However, that smile soon dissipated when she heard the soft groans of pain coming from the guest room. She was beside the man in a flash and nearly jumped back in surprise when he grabbed the front of her kimono and stared at her with wild eyes.

"He has them. He's gonna kill them," he kept shouting with a frantic voice. He rattled her harshly with every word as if to emphasize his point.

By the time she found her voice, her head was spinning dizzily. "Who? Who does he have? Are you listening to me?" She wanted above all to turn the tables and shake some sense into the man in that instant but knew that that would do little good for her cause. "Calm down, sir."

He seemed as crazed as ever, but at least he had stopped shaking her. "_He_ has them. Don't you see? We're all doomed."

It took all of Kagome's restraint not to roll her eyes at him but she couldn't help the sigh of exasperation. "Look, sir. I'm a priestess. I'll help you take care of whatever it is you have a problem with but I need you to tell me what's going on first, okay? So, what _is _going on?"

He looked around warily as if somebody might overhear their conversation and leaned in closer to whisper, "The beast living in the cursed castle just beyond the forest. He's a monster. Sharp fangs and claws, blood red eyes, and he thirsts for blood. He killed my brother and now has my father under his captivity. He was going to kill me too, but I got managed to get away. He's gonna kill us all!"

Kagome was torn between labeling the man as an obvious lunatic and labeling herself as a naive fool. After all, despite her secret wishes for more action (i.e. exterminating demons...), demons had not been spotted for nearly fifty years and counting. The likelihood of one suddenly appearing and terrorizing this man's family was not very high.

But then again, who's to say that the demons weren't just hiding out for a while in order to plan a sophisticated attack against mankind? Kagome had no uncertainties that there still existed demons out there somewhere, but she did have doubts about their intelligence.

If this man's account was true, it would be Kagome's duty to scout out this demon and rid the world of its menace as soon as possible. But if she had searched high and low for it and still couldn't find it, she would most likely become the laughingstock for the village as well as several of the surrounding towns—not something she wanted to go through any time soon.

"Please. Save him, priestess. I beg of you. Save my father."

She looked into his eyes and sighed in annoyance. She could never ignore the plead of anyone and that would probably spell her downfall in the end. "Fine. Just get some rest tonight and you can tell me how to get to this 'cursed castle' tomorrow morning."

"No! My father's very life hangs in the balance. If you do not set out tonight, I don't know if he'll still be alive for you to be rescued tomorrow. Please."

She brought a hand to her forehead and sighed again. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "Okay, okay. I'll get you some paper and a brush. I'll go pack and tell Kaede where I'm headed."

"Thank you! Thank you so much, kind priestess!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she mumbled under her breath. "At least Kaede won't think I'm crazy...I think."

As she left the room, she was too busy brooding about the upcoming "adventure" that she failed to notice the growing smirk on her guest's lips.

* * *

A/N: So...like it? Hate it? Wipe it off the face of the planet so that no one would ever have to go through the torture of reading it ever again? All input is welcome. 


	2. Midnight Stroll

**A/N**: Well, this took me a bit longer than I expected to write up. Went to too many places throughout the last couple of days that had no computer access. It didn't help that I kept on getting these great ideas for fics that I kept on getting side-tracked. Eh...enough excuses I guess.

Thank ya lotsas for the reviews and I appreciate it muchos!

Anyway, I know I wanted to say something else but I can't for the life of me remember what...curse this horrible memory that I have been so kindly bestowed with! Heheheh...okay, I'll shut up now...

Disclaimer: Do I own it now?

No

Dang it...Do I own it now?

No.

Dang it...Do I--

NO!!!

Fine...be that way...

* * *

**Chapter Two: Midnight Strolls**

How, oh, how did she ever think that hiking through the woods in the middle of the night in an attempt to save someone's life would be fun?

Branches snagged at her every step of the way, and Kagome was just grateful that she had the sense to change out of a kimono and into something more travel-friendly. Even so, she had a feeling that by the time she got out of this Godforsaken forest, her breeches would be reduced to tattered shreds and her tunic decorated with extra holes.

She really shouldn't complain considering she was doing this to save someone's life and she _had_ wanted to do something out of the ordinary. But, there was nothing she could do now unless she wanted to face ultimate humiliation and disgrace by turning back half-way through. No, she would stick this out no matter how much she really wanted to just quit.

"I hope this guy wasn't just delirious and seeing hallucinations cause that would just suck."

The map he had written out wasn't exactly the easiest thing to follow since (1) it was written verbally since the guy couldn't draw and (2) it was really dark outside since the canopy bed was too thick, and no light filtered through despite the fact that it was a full moon.

Kagome had lived her whole life around this area and had gone into this particular forest multiple times to gather herbs and the like but she had never even heard that there was a castle buried somewhere in here. Even during her younger days when she was a brave explorer of the unknown, she had never come upon any indication of human life living within the forest.

Still, she had opened her big mouth and given her word that she would see to the safety of the man's (she still didn't have a name for him) father and that's what she would do.

Well, attempt to do anyway.

"Aw crap!" she exclaimed as she tripped over the hundredth tree branch that night. It seemed like nothing was going her way and that all the world was against her. And her luck wasn't about to improve any time soon either.

Her entire body stiffened when she felt a small bundle of fur rub up against her back. Taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart, she slowly craned her head to see behind her, but was met with nothing but the forest floor. Gulping audibly, she slowly crawled to her feet and pretended to occupy herself with dusting her clothes while her eyes darted around the dense undergrowth for signs whatever she had just felt.

"I was just imagining it, I was just imagining it...Eep!" Something warm and definitely fuzzy tickled the bare part of her legs where a rather large hole had ripped into her breeches and she jumped despite herself. "Okay, I _wasn't _just imagining it. But just what the heck is 'it'?"

Her nerves were on end due to the lack of sleep, and she was extremely cranky at the fact that she couldn't figure out what was out there with her.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are. _Whatever _you are..."

Her heart stilled when she heard a rustling noise come from the bushes off to her left. A soft meowing noise followed as a small cat—no bigger than a little fox—emerged nonchalantly from the shrubbery, almost as if it was taking a stroll in the sun.

"Aw, how cute!" she squealed before realizing that this was no ordinary cat on a midnight walk. It had creamy-white fur with a black diamond in its forehead, blood-red eyes stared at her uninterestedly, and its two tails flicked back and forth intermittently.

...Red eyes? Two tails?

Somehow that description didn't fit the category of a normal house cat.

She reached out tentatively to pat the little feline on the head and mumbled, "Hey, little one. Whatcha doing out here all by yourself, huh?"

The cat meowed quietly and rubbed its head against her hand before making a figure eight around her legs. Suddenly, before she had the chance to react, the cat grew into the size of a mare with flames licking at its feet, and Kagome sitting on its back. She loosened a string of profanities that normally would have had her plugging her ears lest she corrupt her innocent mind (A/N: is it possible to corrupt your own mind if you say it yourself? I wonder...) while the cat—or whatever it was—glanced back in irritation and rolled its eyes, almost like it could understand her.

Then, without warning, it leapt into the air in one smooth motion while Kagome clung on for dear life.

_Eep! What the heck is going on around here?_

* * *

"All is going as I planned, Master. The girl has been picked up and is being transported to the castle as we speak. The prince should be transformed into his beastly form tonight and if all goes well, he should be dead before morning comes."

"Fool! How dare you act on your own accord?"

"I-I'm sorry Master. I j-just thought that--"

"You are a naive fool if you believe that she can kill him tonight. He is in his strongest form this night and though she may have extraordinary powers, she is still no match for him."

"But she should be arriving there shortly. We don't have time to bring her back. What if she dies and we must wait another fifty years?"

"No, the girl won't die. If I know Inuyasha, and that I do, then he won't purposely hurt anyone if he doesn't see them as a threat. Of course the fool doesn't see the threats when they're right beneath his nose. No, knowing him, he would force the girl to stay at the castle to prevent anyone else knowing about his home. And that is where we'll start with."

"Master?"

"You just go back and remember to keep the two of them at odds with each other. I will begin to carry out my other plans."

"Yes, Master."

"Inuyasha doesn't stand a chance against me."

* * *

_Okay...totally feeling the freaky vibes right now. But why wouldn't I? I'm riding on the back of a giant cat that can shrink into a dinky little thing in less than a second flying through the air in the middle of the night towards who-knows-what when I'm supposed to be looking for some castle with a demon master located deep in the very same forest I used to explore all the time and I'm not even sure the guy exists! Yup, on a scale from 1 to 10 on my weird experience list, this is a definite 9. Can't call it a 10 yet cause it still doesn't beat the time I saw Kaede doing a handstand with an apple in her mouth and kids jumping all over her. But this definitely is pushing it._

Kagome looked down off the cat's back and tried to gauge how far it was to the ground and whether the tree branches would break her fall or would just help in the process of breaking a couple of bones. Deciding on the latter, she gripped the cat's fur even harder which elicited a low growl as it turned to glare at her with indifferent eyes (if that's possible...). She loosened her grip immediately, as being eaten by a giant cat or falling to an untimely death were not on her to-do list.

"Where are you bringing me anyway?" she asked, just wanting to hear a human voice, no matter the fact that it was her own. It wasn't as if she expected the cat to understand or respond, although she knew that it was far more intelligent than any other species of cat she had ever known. However, there was no need to respond because as soon as the question was out of her mouth, a dark, foreboding castle loomed into sight. The dark granite material created a giant silhouette against the trees and she couldn't help but notice its remarkable resemblance to a gaping maw ready to swallow her whole.

And, as typical in these types of situations, thunder roared and lightning crackled in the background.

Kagome half expected bats to come pouring out from the castle like a flood but was instead greeted by hundreds of dead leaves blowing in her face and sticking in the niches of her clothes and hair. Her doubt about there not being a demon suddenly plummeted through the roof.

Oddly enough, she wasn't afraid—or rather wasn't as afraid as she should be. Instead, her curiosity was stirred and she couldn't help but wonder at who—or what, for that matter—the inhabitants could possibly be. Although she did have a pretty good guess that it was a demon with nice long fangs, razor-sharp claws, and a fiendish appetite—probably big enough of an appetite to eat her for a midnight snack.

She immediately scoffed at the idea. She was a priestess and no matter how big an appetite this demon might have, her job was to get rid of all those nasty creatures, regardless of appearance. However, now that she finally realized that the cat was probably one of the fabled fire-cat demons, she found it hard to bear that she might eventually have to exterminate that one as well.

_I'm sure one little kitty won't hurt anybody...maybe I can use it to scare off Kouga and Hojo though...heh heh, _she thought with an evil smirk plastered across her face. _Ah...I feel so mean, but it's too much fun._

Her train of thought was cut short when she realized that they were right above the front courtyard and that they were about to land. The trees around the castle had thinned and rays of ghostly white moonlight spilled into the ominous courtyard, throwing disturbing shadows of waving branches that held an uncanny likeness to sharp claws scratching for release against the ancient edifice. As they neared the ground, Kagome found cracks filled with weeds and wild grasses splitting the dirt floor like an intricate spider web. Well, if this was the web and she was the helpless insect trapped in its grasp, she wondered if she really wanted to know what the spider would be like.

Regardless, as soon as they touched down, she quickly scrambled off the cat as it shrunk back to its miniature stature. Though the castle struck a chord of fear in her heart and, for some odd reason, she felt safer on the back of the cat, her stomach was queasy and not yet ready for another journey through the air quite yet.

Of course, if there was adequate reason for her to make that journey—such as killer monsters with hungry tummies—then she wouldn't complain...

_Huh. Look at me. I haven't even gotten to the good part yet and I'm already freaking out. Not a good sign, I should think._

She looked around speculatively and shrugged as the once-again-cute-little-bitty-kitty made its way up and through a small square metal door hinged near the bottom of the much larger, official metal front doors.

_Well, only one way to head now. _

Taking one last deep breath to brace herself for whatever may come, Kagome strode purposefully towards the towering entranceway, placed her palms firmly on the cold metal, and pushed.

* * *

A/N: Mwahahahaha!!! 

Sorry, I've just been dying to do that lately. Don't know why, either. Just cause I'm weird I guess.

Anyway, Inuyasha'll show up next chappie along with the rest of the gang so rest assured, my fellow fanfic readers!

(I'm so freaky cheesy sometimes, I scare myself...)


	3. Sleep Talk

**A/N: **I'm telling ya, helping people move in a big pain in the rear. Last weekend, I helped both my sister and my brother move down south and it was such a bother. I'm just hoping that they don't plan on moving again any time soon...

Anyway, thank you for reviewers and I'd love to hear more input please. I'm still new at this whole fanfiction writing thing and I'd really like to know how I'm doing. Thanks a bunches.

Disclaimer: Honestly, would you believe me if I told you I owned Inuyasha?

* * *

**Chapter Three: Sleep Talk**

Taking one last deep breath to brace herself for whatever may come, Kagome strode purposefully towards the towering entranceway, placed her palms firmly on the cold metal, and pushed.

And pushed...and pushed.

"What the heck? Why won't the dumb thing open?!" she exclaimed irately. She had pumped herself up in an effort to be ready for whatever may come, but instead, she was faced with a door that wouldn't open. With the way her luck was going, Kagome wouldn't have been surprised if the stupid door needed something trite like a password or whatever to open. Half-heartedly, she tried pushing the doors open again, but as expected, was to no avail.

"Great. What do I do now? Go back and tell everyone I couldn't get rid of the vicious demons cause I couldn't get the freakin' door open? Oh yeah. That'll go real well with the villagers, not to mention the half-dead guy I saved. Then again, maybe I could move out of this village quietly and into another one—if my reputation hasn't gone ahead of me as 'the priestess who didn't know how to open a door.' Nah. Maybe I'll just sit out here for a while and enjoy the weather..."

The thunder seemed to rumble unusually loud and the sputtering of lightning unusually close as a heavy rain began to pour down overhead. Within seconds, Kagome was completely soaked head to foot and shivering from the biting wind that swept through the deserted courtyard. Wet leaves—which she had previously very momentarily mistaken for bats—slapped sopping marks on her face and the dirt (now mud) seemed to glue each leaf onto her bare skin. Too discouraged to peel them off any longer, Kagome just let them gather until she looked like a mummified pile of plastered leaves.

_At least it keeps me dry...sort of...not really...damn..._

She turned her eyes toward heaven—well, since she couldn't really see through the rain that pelted at her mercilessly, she just guessed at the general direction of where the skies should be—and wondered for the thousandth time that night what she had done wrong to deserve such a pitiful end.

She wasn't even going to get to do battle with a ferocious demon or stave off a killing epidemic with her superior medical skills or anything! All she got to do was ride on the back of a blow-up cat (and she had even gotten slightly airsick too!), sit outside the gates of a dark castle since she couldn't get inside, and get nicely preserved by wet leaves so that those in the future may see her body and pity her pointless life. She could just see the tombstone they would help her set up (if they were even decent enough to help her do that):

_Kagome Higurashi_

_Died at the tender age of eighteen_

_The inferior priestess of a little village that no one knows the name of but was once the birthplace of the great priestess Kikyo. Accomplished nothing in her life but to discover that she was born at the wrong time, at the wrong place, and in the wrong world. May her soul rest in peace since she obviously didn't find it during her lifetime._

Yes. That sounded wonderful. Exactly how she wanted to be remembered in fact.

After contemplating about the last details of her grave, Kagome sighed and finally decided to shift over to a little niche beside the doorway since she was getting little to no coverage next to the doors. It took her a short while to adjust to the cold and wet floor, but when she did, she immediately fell into a troubled sleep.

* * *

"Ugh! Cold...somebody turn on the sun please," mumbled the young priestess as she rolled over on her side, wrapping her arms around herself as tightly as possible to keep the body warmth in.

She'd been having an odd dream.

It had started with her birthday where Hojo and Kouga were about to get at it; then she saved a badly injured guy who said his dad was caught by some demon; then she was trekking through the forest in the middle of the night and there was something about a size-reducing/increasing cat; and then a castle.

Oh heck, she couldn't remember it all. It wasn't a very pleasant dream though.

Actually, she was probably still dreaming. Otherwise she wouldn't be hearing those voices in the distance. Being too lazy—even in her dream—to look at the speaker's, she could vaguely make out two male voices and a female one.

What was that they were talking about? A mummy?

One of the male voices cleared slightly—or was it because it was getting louder?—as Kagome half tuned into what was being said.

"My God, Inuyasha! Have you no sense? I can't believe you knew there was a person out here all night and _you_ didn't let them in!"

The other male voice—this one rougher and harsher than the other—scoffed and replied rudely, "This pile of leaves isn't a person. It's a damn mummy! Besides, I couldn't do anything until this morning. Remember last night was my night?"

"So! You can't use that for an excuse. Even on your nights, you're still sane. You could've fetched me or Sango to get this person in rather than let them freeze to death last night!"

"Feh! Yeah right. Like you guys would really believe me when I'm like that anyway."

The smoother male voice paused, as if thinking. "Well, the least you could've done was to tell us as soon as you knew this morning rather than wait until it's nearly noon!"

"I did! Except you and the slayer over there were too busy doing who-knows-what!"

"I'll be happy to tell—"

_Slap_!

"—you another time when my dear Sango isn't around."

_Crack_!

"Ow...I think you broke a bone that time."

"Should've learned the first time, idiot."

The female voice finally spoke up with a slightly irritated voice, "As much entertainment as this has been, if you two are done arguing, we might want to check up on this person and see if they're actually alive?"

Kagome heard some shuffling beside her and wondered how come her dream was so realistic feeling. Even her back and neck were stiff. Suddenly, she felt a sudden drop in temperature around her and whined, "Hey! Where did the sun go?" She felt something peel off her arm and the area where the whatever that had been covering her was covering her suddenly felt extra cold from the breeze that swept over her. Her body warmth was quickly seeping out of her skin and shivers shook her lithe frame. She whimpered slightly and muttered with a quivering voice, "Damn. This dream sure sucks."

Numbness set in but she could faintly feel somebody's hand rubbing her arm. Of course naturally, when faced with a situation like this, there is only one person in the world any normal person would think of. "Mmm...hi Mommy. I'm cold. Can you tuck me in, please?"

She heard a light snigger close-by followed quickly by a resounding smack.

With too much racket to ignore, Kagome used all of her strength left to finally crank an eye open to see three very unfamiliar faces staring down at her. One was concerned, one was annoyed, and one was...well she didn't want to know what _that_ one was. Seeing as it wasn't anybody she recognized, she immediately decided that it meant it had nothing to do with her and that she was obviously in the wrong dream. So, the best way to remedy that would be to...go back to sleep.

"Whoop! There she goes again!" she heard commented the first male voice, a little too cheerfully.

Right before slipping off back to dreamy-land, Kagome heard the second male voice faintly in the distance, "Are you sure that's a girl? It doesn't look like one..."

_What a dumb question...of course I'm a girl...what else would I be?_ she wondered noncommittally before falling faint to the waking world.

* * *

The strange thing about being unconscious, sometimes, is the fact that one often lapses in and out of consciousness so often that reality and dreams merge together with the thinnest of lines separating the two worlds. But, more often than not, the one who dreams finds that this already fine line is blurred to a state where it is no longer recognizable nor is it plausible to find a balance between what is real and what is not.  
And thus, it was in this state that Kagome had floundered in for three days.

She would be awake for a few precious moments when the borders of sanity would be sharply defined only to be thrust back into the melting pot of insanities known as her unconscious mind seconds later.

During her short, waking moments, she caught snippets of conversation between those same three voices that she had heard before and, sometimes, she even saw the distorted faces of those that cared for her. The one she saw the most often was that of a girl—perhaps a little older than herself—whose concern was evident, even within her semi-conscious state.

However, the one that was most engrained in her mind was that of an irritated and—seemingly—disturbed young man with a wild mane of white hair and the oddest appendages she had ever seen on a human. He sported—what she perceived as—white, triangular ears atop his tresses that flickered about restlessly.

The reason that his face was so burned into her mind, however, was not because of his odd appearance which was nonetheless rather attractive—although that certainly was a major factor. No, the reason being was that she had seen him constantly in the sea of scenes that flashed through her head during her times of dreaming. And as the days proceeded, his image appeared even more often until he was the dominating thought. The small part of awareness that hovered in the back of her mind wondered at this understanding, but was buried beneath the other troubles she had, such as how to stop wallowing in this state of hazy half reality.

* * *

"How is the stupid wench holding up, Sango?"

The demon slayer sighed at Inuyasha's blatant disrespect for the girl but said nothing about it. She knew that he was just being concerned and was showing it in his own, twisted way. Besides, they were all on edge the past couple of days and she didn't exactly blame him for being irritated.

"Well, considering she has a pretty serious case of hypothermia, she's doing better. Not great, but okay. But, she's not in the clear yet and she still hasn't broken a sweat—despite the blankets we buried her beneath--which means her body is still not creating enough warmth to sustain her life on her own. It's disturbing that she hasn't fully come around yet either."

"So what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that the longer she stays unconscious, the greater danger she's in. We've done all we can do for her though. All we can do now is wait for her to come around. Once that happens, it's pretty much smooth sailing from there."

Sango looked up to see if Inuyasha was still there and was surprised to see that his gaze was fixed steadily on the girl. When Inuyasha felt her eyes trained on him, he let out a low growl and snapped, "What?"

"Nothing..." she replied with a hidden smile. Sango had known him for far too long to be intimidated by his scare tactics. Sensing that it was as safe as it ever would be regarding the subject she was about to tread on very, very carefully, she asked with casual indifference, "So...what do you think?"

His ocher eyes settled on her momentarily before flicking back to the girl that had literally shown up at his doorstep three days ago. "About what?"

"Oh, you know..." she drew out purposely.

"No, I don't know."

"Well...about the curse and all. You think she could be the one?" Despite her efforts to sound uninterested, this was one subject she could not keep her excitement out of. Well, this and the very satisfying hobby of thinking of new ways to punish Miroku for his perverted ways.

"Hell do I care," came Inuyasha's mumbled response.

Sango couldn't hold back the sigh that ensued and rolled her eyes. When Inuyasha didn't want to talk about something, nothing in the world could get him to spill.

A comfortable silence fell between demon slayer and half-demon as each were consumed by his or her own thoughts. Sango's ran along the lines of how much longer it would take for the girl to wake up and what they would do once she did. They hadn't had a visitor in nearly fifty years—ever since that damn curse—and it was awkward having a guest in the castle.

Most of the servants were already placing bets as to how soon they thought their master would drive the girl away. It wasn't even a matter of contemplation among them of whether or not she would stay because there was no doubt in their minds that, if she was sane, she would take off the first chance she had. Of course, several had begun to question her sanity if she had made her way to the castle in the first place.

The other subject that occupied her mind was much more light-hearted, not to mention wishful. She couldn't help but wonder what things would be like once—or rather if—the curse was broken. She wondered what she would do in a world that she hadn't step foot in for fifty years. She wondered if Miroku would let go of his lecherous ways and maybe settle down...She wondered—

"Hey Sango." Inuyasha's voice broke through her reverie and caused her to start.

"What?"

"You haven't slept in a while, right?"

"Yeeah...what of it?"

"Go to sleep."

"Huh?" Now this was new. Although Sango had known the hanyou for many, many years and was one of the few people that knew of his buried compassion, it never ceased to amaze her when he actually voiced his concern—however rude he may deliver it.

Inuyasha rolled his eyes and replied in a slow voice as if Sango was a dense little child, "I said, 'Go. To. Sleep.' Got it? I don't want two unconscious wenches in my castle if I can help it."

She glanced from Inuyasha to the girl and back to Inuyasha as a questioning brow shot up. Noticing her line of vision, Inuyasha growled, "Look, don't worry. I'm not a damn lech like the freakin' monk, alright? I'm not gonna try anything on her...like I would want to anyway..."

Grinning, the demon slayer replied innocently, "What? I didn't say that you would? Where did you get the absurd idea? Were you thinking about things?" She slapped a hand to her mouth as soon as the question was out. She'd been stuck with the monk for too long and his perverted mind was beginning to affect her.

Embarrassed by herself, Sango quickly scurried out of the guest room, leaving a smirking hanyou and an unconscious girl behind.

* * *

A/N: So I know that Kagome seems a little more bitter in this one than usual but that's only cuz of the curse she got stuck with. Until next time, may the force be with you, young padiwans...(how the heck do you spell that?) 


	4. Beauty, Meet Beast

**A/N**: So tired...school bites big time. I started last week and I already hate it...well, not really hate it. Just a really strong disliking. My parents came home from Shanghai on Saturday. They were looking for a place for us to live in and messing with my school stuff. Packing...is a big pain in the rear...

Anyway, done with my rambling, I think. This chapter took me a long time to write for some reason and it's not even as long as my other chapters. I'm not very happy with the second half of it either. But, oh well. I can't do much with it now. Maybe I'll rewrite it later, but for now...enjoy.

Disclaimer: sigh Why on earth are these stupid things required anyway? But in case you're wondering, no me ownie.

* * *

**Chapter Four: Beauty, Meet Beast**

_She was running._

_She didn't know why, she didn't know where she was headed, nor did she know what she was running from. Only that she had to run. She had to run if she wanted to survive._

_But it was so hard to keep going._

_Her legs had long ago grew numb from the constant exertion and her lungs burned like the fires of a master blacksmith's furnace. Tears blurred her already hazy vision and made it so that each step felt like she was striding into the unknown._

_At last, her body could not take it any longer as she stumbled over an upraised tree root and she slid a full ten feet before coming to a painful stop. Using the last vestiges of her strength, she managed to push herself into a sitting position with her back leaning against a towering oak._

_Her sleeves were burned clean through and even her skin seemed to have been ripped off of her muscles. All that was left was a messy mass of flesh and blood that would have—at one time—passed for her arms. Still, although it looked like her arms were run over by a stampede of wild horses, the pain was not as intense as she expected it to be. Looking down, she realized for the first time, that the entire front of her kimono was soaked through with blood—blood that came from a gaping hole just above her heart. It was a wonder that she was able to stand at all, much less run for the distance that she had._

"_Hey bitch. Not dead yet?"_

_The sneer in his voice was so prominent that it sent shivers down her back. She looked up slowly, not wanting to see who was the culprit of her anguish, and felt her heart shatter into a million pieces when she was met with the calm facade of a man she once knew well. Or rather, _thought _she knew well._

_There was resentment, hatred, and anger in his expression but what frightened her most was the biting callousness with which he regarded her, despite the fact that she was nearly bled dry of her blood. But it was obvious to her now that he didn't care. He smirked and knelt down closer beside her and at that moment the evil was so overpowering that she shrank back from the maliciousness that seemed to exude from him._

_She gasped sharply when a clawed hand pierced through her flesh and came out on the other side, dripping with her life fluid. Her eyes never left his and if she hadn't known better, she would never have believed that at that moment, his hand was run through her body._

_But the pain was only in the distance. It was more like an irritating buzz that refused to go away than the life-threatening wound that it was. All she knew was that this man—no this monster—was the one who was taking her life despite his promise to protect her from all harms. And just as she was slipping into darkness, her lips parted to form a single word._

"_Why?"_

* * *

It had been such a long time since Kagome had had a normal dream that she nearly forgot the indications that told oneself that one was in a dream.

For example, she definitely couldn't remember a dream in which she felt pain. In fact, she had always thought that pain meant that she was awake. If that was the case, though, then she should be more conscious than she had been in a long, long time because the ache that began at her chest and ran throughout her entire body was just below unbearable.

But then again, if she was really awake, why couldn't she remember what had happened? And why did she sense a demon aura nearby?

"Oi, so you finally awake bitch?"

And why in the world did that voice seem to carry all the sharpness and clarity that a dream could never reproduce?

Unless, of course, she was actually present in the waking world...

Drowsiness clouded her mind as she slowly realized that she wasn't dreaming and was in fact very much awake. "Ugh, my head..."

"Not dead yet?" the voice vaguely familiar as were the words that were spoken.

"No, sorry to disappoint," she responded sardonically to the rough tenor that had disturbed her wonderings.

_Hold up...where exactly am I? And who exactly is that?_

Her snapped open in alarm as she waited impatiently for her vision to focus. As if to mock her, everything blurred even further and all she could make out were formless blobs of color. Even then, the colors began to fade into various shades of gray before ultimately dissolving into a solid, pitch black. Her mind, racing to understand the reason for her lost vision, nevertheless refused to even accept the possibility that she could be blind. It wasn't possible.

_No, it's probably because I just woke up. It'll pass,_ she thought desperately, all the while a small part of her knew that this wasn't just simply a phase that would pass. Still, seeing—or rather not-seeing but knowing—that she was in an unfamiliar territory, Kagome thought it best to not reveal any weakness at this point.

So, after struggling to sit up against the mountain of blankets that were piled on top of her and with as much vigor as she could muster despite her cracking voice, she demanded with a much more commanding tone than she expected, "Who are you and where am I?"

The voice scoffed and muttered, "You're one ungrateful little bitch. If you must know, I'm the one that saved your ass."

Kagome would have snapped back at his arrogance had another female voice not beaten her to it. "Inuyasha! Can't you at least be civil to the girl? She just woke up for goodness sake!"

There was some shuffling and a noise that sounded suspiciously like the slap of a hand against a rather hollow sounding object before the female voice spoke again. "Hi, I'm Sango. This here is Miroku and the grumpy one is Inuyasha."

When the voice—Sango—paused, Kagome reached out tentatively on instinct and mentally breathed a sigh of relief when she felt a firm, calloused hand return her shake. "I'm Kagome. Uh...where exactly am I?"

"What? Can't you see? You're in _my_ castle..." muttered Inuyasha darkly.

For a minute, the breath caught in Kagome's throat as she wondered if maybe he could tell that she couldn't see. However, she quickly tossed her concern away and passed his comment as just plain rudeness.

Again, any retort she might have made was cut short, this time by a male voice, presumably Miroku. "Inuyasha! That's no way to speak to a pretty lady."

He shifted his attention to Kagome and it was as if she could sense an unwelcome appendage of his reaching towards a rather personal part of her body. Impulsively, her hand darted out to smack his before he came within a foot of her. Someone clapped with glee and another someone snickered while Miroku rubbed his bruised hand with his other.

"Wow, I like her already. She's got quick reflexes," commented Sango while trying unsuccessfully to hide her laughter.

Confused in more ways than one, Kagome asked, "Uh...what exactly is going on here? Where am I?"

"I said you're in my castle. And you're trespassing, what's more," came the muttered reply of the only person she knew capable of being so rude and immature.

"Well, not like I meant to trespass in the first place," she snapped.

Sensing danger on the horizon if she let the two continue on, Sango quickly cut in, "Just ignore him. He's just cranky since he pulled a couple of all-nighters waiting for you to wake up. He's really not that bad once you get to know him."

"Oh..."

Of all the things Sango could have said, that was definitely not something Kagome had expected. Yes, while the young priestess was not normally one to judge a person based on first impressions, the master of the castle had left an unnaturally bad one. A couple moments of silence ensued while Kagome was wrapped up in thoughts of how to get herself out of this one, when Inuyasha mistook her silence for something else.

"Well, you don't gotta get all sappy on us. I just did it cause normal humans can't stay up as long as I can," he said with more than a hint of pride.

_Wait a second...Did he just say normal humans?_

"What exactly are you if you're not a 'normal human'?" she asked tentatively. However, as soon as the question was out of her mouth, she nearly physically slapped herself silly for her stupidity. After all, she had just given away the biggest hint that she could not see.

"Simple. Inuyasha is a hanyou. Can't you see his cute, little fluffy ears?" responded Miroku in a teasing tone. However, he quickly dropped it when he realized that Kagome's eyes were glazed over with a cloudy white film that he had earlier mistaken for signs of weariness. "Kagome, I don't want to alarm you but I'm gonna come a little closer. I'm not going to do anything inappropriate, I swear."

"Miroku, what are yo—" began Sango but faltered when she caught his serious expression.

Kagome searched her mind for a way for the knowledge of her failed eyesight to not be made known, but knew at the same time that there was no hope for it. Besides, if this guy was supposed to be a monk--despite his obvious lecherous tendencies--then maybe he would know how to heal her.

Kagome was proficient healer herself, but she knew that it was always harder for those who healed the sick to heal themselves.

She strained her hearing for some noise that would alert her as to what was going on, but it seemed like all the world had suddenly fallen silent and she was the only one awake in a sleeping earth. The space in front of her cheeks suddenly warmed, but other than that, nothing. A little frightened that she may have lost her hearing also, she called out in a slightly cracked voice, "Hey? You guys still there?"

"Dear God, she really can't see us," mumbled Sango, the sympathy unmistakable in her tone.

"It's just a phase. It'll pass," replied Kagome half-heartedly, not really believing what she said.

_No, it's not a phase. It won't pass like rain clouds pass after a storm. This is a punishment,_ whispered that annoying little voice known as her conscience.

_But a punishment for what?_ she wondered.

"Uh, I wouldn't be so sure about that Kagome. I'm holding a candle right in front of your eyes right now and you didn't even respond to it in the slightest way. It's got to be pretty bad if you can't even see the dimmest glimmer of light," replied Miroku in his most soothing voice. It wasn't easy for him to tell a pretty girl that she most likely blinded for life.

Kagome closed her eyes (not like it would have made a difference) and took a deep breath. With as a steady a voice as she could muster in a situation like this, she slowly drawled out, "So...what exactly are you trying to say?"

"Well...it may still be a little early to tell...but, if my assumptions are correct and they usually are...well, then..."

"Just out with it, alright already!" she burst.

"You've most likely lost your vision for good. It's probably due to the hypothermia and the shock you went into. There's no reason to lose hope though. There's always the possibility of this being a temporary thing..."

Miroku continued to talk, but Kagome had tuned out after the first sentence.

_Lost my vision for good? Go figure that I play the nice girl and go off to kill some demon in the middle of some Godforsaken forest and end up losing my vision. Just my luck. Just my freaking damn luck._

There was no point in listening to the rest of Miroku's speech. There was no need. She knew it was all just formalities. Hell, she's had to do the same thing plenty of times. And most of the time the patients she worked with knew it was a load of bull too.

She chuckled darkly and the three occupants of the castle stared at her in confusion. Yeah, well, let them stare. She was beyond caring now. Maybe it was a bit of lunacy that was setting in, but she just didn't give a damn.

"Oi, wench, quit doing that. It's creepy," commanded Inuyasha, his eyes flattening against his skull at the crazed woman.

Kagome ignored him and continued to laugh, the bitterness laced thoroughly through her voice. "Leave please."

"What? Who do you think you are? You can't just order me order, you stupid bitch!"

"I said leave and I won't say it again."

Ice. Pure, cold, hard-hitting ice.

She was blind, but she was still no pushover.

Luckily for Inuyasha, Sango could tell when a girl was pissed and Kagome was definitely passed that stage. If the hanyou pushed the girl passed her edge, who knows what may happen to the stubborn master of the castle. So, despite Inuyasha's vehement opposition, the demon slayer and monk somehow managed to drag the boy out of the blind girl's room before something hazardous to their health occurred.

* * *

A/N: Like I said before, not the happiest I've ever been with my writing but oh well. I'm tired, I'm cranky, and I think that's rubbing off on my writing... 

Neway, like always, reviews are appreciated. Laterz...I think I'm gonna go sleep now...


	5. In Case One Loses One's Guest

**A/N**: Hi all! I'm so proud of myself...I don't think I've ever updated so quickly before and that was with a one-shot in between too! Heehee...

Anyway, want to a couple of thank you's out there to my reviewers. 'ppreciate lots. I would also love, love, LOVE to hear from more readers (if they're out there...). Constructive criticism is very welcome as I am still new with this whole fanfic writing business.

Disclaimer: I don't not own Inuyasha.

Damn it...you caught it...fine I don't own Inuyasha...

* * *

**Chapter Five: In Case One Loses One's Guest**

"What's the status of the girl?"

"From what I overheard, she's been blinded. However, I think that that's just because of the 'blessing' passed down from Kikyo. I believe it has something to do with that mask of hers. She looks an awful lot like Kikyo too."

"Hmm...interesting. I've waited fifty years for a priestess strong enough to break the barrier and she just might happen to be Kikyo's reincarnation. Excellent."

"What should I do now, Master? Should I still try to stir up conflicts?"

"...No. I have a better idea. Leave them be for a while."

"Yes, Master."

"But, in the meantime, I would like you to meet my new servant. Come out of the shadows, boy."

* * *

Yup, it was official. Being blind sucked ass.

Kagome had never felt so helpless before in her life. And it definitely didn't help that her case of hypothermia still hadn't cleared up all the way yet. As a result, she was stuck in bed with nothing to eat but soup all day with nothing to do than to let her mind wander. Already, she'd thought up hundreds of different ways she could torture the injured man for dragging her into this. Never mind the fact that it was her job and never mind duty.

Ah damn it, who was she kidding? She was the one that was looking forward to this in the first place. And thus her first day passed in the enchanted castle, arguing with herself and thinking of methods of torture.

Fun-fun-whoopy-doo-joy...

There was only so much a soul could bear before going insanely, crazily, well...crazy. And Kagome was definitely nearing the edge. She had long accepted—well, actually it had only been a day since that's all the time she's been awake for—the fact that she probably would never be able to see again, and, oddly enough, it hadn't bothered her too much.

However, what was really bugging her was sitting around and doing nothing. That was exactly the kind of life she was trying to get away from—however discreetly it may be—and this whole lying-in-bed-like-a-sick woman was getting to be too much for her tastes. She was a woman of action and this...this definitely was not action. So, disregarding whatever consequences may come, she tossed the covers off of herself carelessly and clambered out of bed. Holding her hands in front of her lest she crashed into a wall or something equally hard, she slowly made her way to the door, yanked it open, and walked out into the unknown.

* * *

Miroku watched his friend tear and rip away at the forest with knowing eyes, a mischievous twinkle lighting up the deeps pools of swirling violet. "So..."

"So what?" grunted the irritable hanyou. Trees were felled at an amazing pace but he couldn't care less as he clawed at the massive oaks and smirked with satisfaction at the ear-splitting cracks they caused when the trunks connected with the solid, dirt-packed floor. Hell, they'd grow back the next day anyway.

"So..." repeated Miroku with that all-too familiar lilt in his voice. That meant that he was either thinking bad thoughts, or he was thinking up some shitty plan again. Knowing Miroku, it was probably a bit of both.

"Quit doing that, you damn perverted monk. If you got something to say, then spit it out!"

The "holy man's" grin lengthened as he took a wild guess at Inuyasha's irritation. "Girl's pretty, isn't she?"

Judging by the reaction he elicited from the master of the castle, his speculation as to Inuyasha's frustration was correct. Oh boy, he could have fun with this...

"I've seen prettier..." he muttered in response.

"Mmhm...you know, don't you get the weirdest feeling of deja vu when you see her?"

"_Now_ what the hell are you talking about?"

"Don't tell me you didn't notice that our beautiful guest holds an eerily strong resemblance to a certain priestess," continued Miroku, despite or unaware of the murderous glint Inuyasha cast at him. "Wouldn't it be ironic if the woman who ended up breaking the curse was Kikyo's reincarnation?"

The moment those words were out of his mouth, Miroku knew that he had made a dire, dire mistake. Well, multiple mistakes actually.

Mistake #1: He simply didn't know how to shut up his horrendously garrulous mouth.

Mistake #2: He was bothering Inuyasha when he was in a bad mood. Dumb, dumb, and dumber.

And finally mistake #3: He spoke Kikyo's name. And not only that, Inuyasha was already pissed off as it was. Possibly the stupidest thing he could have done in his entire life.

Yup, not smart. El stupido. Dumber than Dumbo (A/N: no offense to the cute little elephant with the big flappy ears...), wherever _that_ reference came from. From his point of view, he'd pretty much dug a nice big comfy hole in the ground and jumped in.

And he wasn't far off.

Inuyasha bared his fangs in an angry growl and pounced on Miroku, knocking him back into one of the few trees he had not decimated. He took a handful of his purple robes and lifted him off of his feet, effectively choking the air out of him and turning his face nearly the same color as his robes.

"Don't. You. DARE! To ever say her name again. I don't even want to hear her mentioned. Do you understand, _monk_?" Inuyasha's voice was uncharacteristically calm which usually meant that big trouble loomed in the horizon. He pulled a fist back and Miroku slammed his eyes shut to ready for the impact.

_Anywhere but the face, anywhere but the face, anywhere but the face, _he chanted in his mind as he silently prayed that he wouldn't be too badly injured. He knew that he'd heal by tomorrow, but it would still hurt like hell.

Inuyasha made a deep throaty sound from his lungs and his fist flew forward fast as lightning to impact with his target with a loud crack. Silence flooded the once-tree-littered area before a piercing creak rent through the air and was followed dutifully by an earth-shaking thud. The hanyou's breathing held a hidden growl as he panted heavily to calm his temper. His eyes had flashed red, blurring for a moment before it cleared to show that he hadn't seriously maimed his idiotic, perverted, dumb-ass, offensive but nonetheless friend. He was relieved for in his moment of wrath, he really didn't care if he had killed Miroku, but like hell he would tell him that.

Meanwhile, Miroku was still bracing himself for the sure beating he would receive and was trying to decide how best to protect his own beautiful face when he realized that he should have passed out by now. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he had completely missed how close a fisted hand had narrowly missed his prized face and that it had landed three inches deep in the trunk behind him. Furthermore, he even missed it when the tree began to fall backwards, slowly at first before picking up its speed.

However, he definitely didn't miss it when it landed as it had lifted him off the ground about a foot high. It was only then that he realized how close he was to getting a date with Death.

True, his injuries would heal after a day, but there was no healing for a man whose brain was bashed in mercilessly. Those types usually died from either severe brain trauma or severe blood loss, neither of which sounded very appealing. Miroku watched apprehensively as the crimson hue faded slowly from Inuyasha's irises and the hanyou released his grip on the monk's robes. It was only then that Miroku allowed himself to breathe again.

"Don't...don't be such an idiot next time," mumbled Inuyasha under his breath. His eyes were downcast as if he were ashamed of how he had lost control, but he said nothing more.

* * *

"Ooohhh...crapohcrudohshootmedead!" Sango rattled out all on one breath as she charged down the halls.

She was originally supposed to keep Kagome company for a little while—a task that she was actually looking forward to since it did tend to get lonely being the only visible female in the whole castle—but much to her dismay, the blind girl was already gone by the time she got to the guest wing.

"Oh, Inuyasha will _not_ be happy."

And though she could often hold her ground against the dog-demon, she wasn't too keen on fighting a rage-fueled mindless fighting machine any time soon if she could help it. She rubbed her temples with her fingers and sighed in exasperation. She had already searched the whole damned castle through twice! How much trouble could it be to find one, injured, and _blind_ girl?

_Very much, apparently,_ replied her rebellious mind.

Taking in a deep breath to calm her nerves, she pulled to a halt in the middle of a hallway and let out a long jet of air through her teeth creating a sharp whistling sound. "Okay...so if I were a blind hypothermic girl who just happened to find herself lost in an enchanted castle in the middle of some God-forsaken forest, where would I go?"

Sango was met with nothing but silence. "Ah...dammit. I already tried that..."

The loud clinking of metal against tile floor followed by a soft curse broke through her musings as Sango raised a suspicious eyebrow towards the noise.

_And you'd think that after so many years, the servants would have learned how _not_ to break things..._she sighed in her mind. Shaking her head in vexation, she continued down the hall all the while mumbling to herself.

* * *

Kagome breathed a deep sigh of relief when she was finally positive that the demon slayer was out of hearing range. She knew there was a reason she spent more time than usual working on her cloaking technique when she was still in training. She was finally seeing—please excuse the poor pun—the fruits of her labor.

She had been so sure that Sango had heard the ruckus she made when she crashed into...well, something—she still wasn't sure what. But the reaction she received was not what she was expecting at all. It almost seemed like Sango had known she was there but had decided to ignore her. But that was very, very unlikely as the priestess had heard several angry curses as she watched Sango walk pass multiple times.

Still, that just added to her overwhelming curiosity of the whole ordeal. Well, that and the fact that Sango herself had mentioned that this was an "enchanted" castle, whatever the hell that meant.

Rolling her unseen eyes at the unseen deity that was making a joke out of her life, Kagome continued on her way.

Unfortunately, she hit a small snag. Literally.

_Rip_!

"Ow! Freaking a...I already went this way. I remember I walked into the table last time too. There goes another part of a perfectly fine kimono," she muttered as she continued in her unguided tour of the castle grounds.

* * *

"Um...Inuyasha, don't freak out on me or anything but Kagome's gone," Sango said with an apprehensive edge in her voice. "Eh, no. That makes me sound too wimpy. Maybe I should just use my 'get-in-my-way-and-you'll-feel-lots-of-pain method.' Usually works with the monk. But then again, if I try that with Inuyasha, _I'll_ probably be the one feeling the pain. Damn it. I was hoping to survive until the curse was broken..."

_Or at least until the time limit is broken..._voiced the pessimistic portion of her brain.

"Oh, shut up," she snapped back at, well, herself.

She was still arguing with herself when she finally found Inuyasha and Miroku in quite a close proximity with each other and lots and lots of fallen trees in a nice big ring around the two. An eyebrow shot up as she took in the possibilities...

"Um...guys? What are you doing?"

Two sets of startled eyes snapped in her direction, one in annoyance and the other in surprise...and horror.

"Sango! It's not what it looks like, honest!" Miroku shot out at once, his expression appalled. "As feminine as Inuyasha looks"—_curse my dumb mouth! _he thought at once upon seeing the murderous look in the hanyou's eyes—"you know I'm only into women."

"What the hell are you talking about? Damn, you have a sicker mind than I thought! And that's saying something," growled Inuyasha.

"No kidding. I was just about to ask what dumb-ass comment you might have said that nearly caused the extinction of this forest but I obviously don't need to ask anymore," added Sango.

Miroku's cheeks reddened ever so slightly but knowing Miroku, he never stayed embarrassed at one thing for too long. Unless, that thing happened to have something to do with expressing his feelings for the demon slayer, of course...

He cleared his throat and his ever-present look of superior wisdom took its rightful place once again. "Well, I knew that. I was just...uh, making sure you guys knew that. Right..."

Inuyasha and Sango exchanged that look that said 'do-you-think-he-was-born-crazy-or-was-it-some-traumatizing-event-in-his-life-that-knocked-a-screw-loose-in-the-big-space-he-calls-his-head?'

They both shrugged simultaneously.

Desperate for something to turn the attention from himself—despite the fact that he normally _liked_ getting all the attention, but that was only when it was actually good—Mroku tried to change the subject. Successfully too, I might add.

"So, Sango, what brings you into the outside among such inferior beauty when compared to your own?"

He was surprised, however, when the usual accompanying slap didn't occur, even when his infamous hand was inching closer to her bottom. However, he was so intrigued with what was about to happen next that he didn't even reach her before he stopped on his own.

Instead, Sango bowed her head slightly and with a guilty laugh said, "Say Inuyasha, you weren't too fond of Kagome were you?"

His deadpan look answered for him.

"Uh, that's good cause, uh, I think I kinda, um, well..."

"Just spit it out damn it! Both you and that monk don't know how to talk right."

_Yeah, you're one to talk_, she wanted to snap back. But, knowing that that would be detrimental to her health, she decided not to bait the hanyou any further.

"Yeah, well, I think I kinda lost her..."

Blissful silence filled the air for a brief moment before a roar of anger shook the foundations of the earth and scared a good many innocent creatures back into their burrows, something Miroku and Sango wished they could do as well.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST HER!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!?!"

_Uh...oops?_


	6. The West Wing

**A/N**: Hey y'all. I'm moving to Shanghai in exactly one month. I live in California by the way so I'll be moving half-way across the world. Everything is so crazy and all. Ick, I'm telling ya, moving is such a bug.

I'm kinda tired right now so I don't really know what I'm writing... Too sleepy to care.

Anyway, again, thank you for reviews. I love 'em lots! Kay, on with the story...

Disclaimer: Baa ram you. Baa ram you. I don't own Inuyasha. Baa ram you... (I don't own _Babe _either...)

* * *

**Chapter Six: The West Wing **

"Dumb-ass lecherous monks who don't know how to shut the hell up. Stupid demon exterminators who don't know how to look after some damn bitch. Idiotic human wenches who don't know how to stay put. Damn them all!" he growled in a repeating chant as he pounded down the hallways with a black cloud of thunderstorms hovering right above his head and his face was screwed into one of dark foreboding.

God save the poor soul of anyone who managed to get in his way.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid! Shit! Why can't I smell the stupid bitch?"

Miroku and Sango watched passively as the dog-demon took off on his rampage. "How long do you think it'll take the servants to repair the damages to the castle this time?" asked the monk with a playful lilt in his voice, his dark violet eyes twinkling with dry humor.

Sango raised an eyebrow as she tried to make an estimate. Shrugging, she replied, "How about never?"

Miroku considered this for a little bit and nodded. "Sounds reasonable."

The demon exterminator chuckled wryly while shaking her head and sighed. "You know, shouldn't we be more concerned about Kagome's welfare? With the way Inuyasha's going..."

A moment's pause ensued before Miroku replied—much to Sango's surprise—in a very serious tone, "I wouldn't be too worried. I have a feeling Kagome left out a very important fact regarding who she was when we had that little talk this morning. A fact that might have something to do with her being a miko, and a very powerful one at that."

"Really?"

"Indeed. If I'm reading her aura correctly—which I have no doubt that I am—then her powers might even surpass that of another miko we've had the pleasure of meeting."

Sango snorted at his last phrase.

Yeah, pleasure her ass. That last miko happened to be the reason the whole castle and its inhabitants were placed under a curse that just so happened to expire at the end of this year.

_Expire?_ _Well, there's a new way of putting everyone in this damn place gets wiped off the face of the planet, _she thought bitterly. Fifty years stuck in a castle with Inuyasha and Miroku had definitely put dampers on her optimism and considering how little she had to begin with—all demon exterminators acknowledged and accepted the fact they could very well face an early grave—she was left with very, very little on her level of sanguinity.

While she had been thinking her happy thoughts, Miroku had been going on and she quickly tuned in when he said something about Kagome's condition. Sango barely knew the girl, but it had been a long time since a new face has shown up and quite frankly she missed the outside world.

"Kagome's blindness might be related to her powers somehow," he had stated simply.

"Huh? But I thought it was because of her hypothermia."

"...Yes, it might have been triggered by her hypothermia but I have a hunch that there's something much more complex involved."

"Complex? How so?"

Intrigued, Sango made the mistake of leaning a little too close to the renowned monk and his infamous wandering hands. Thus, not a second later, Miroku was sprawled across the floor with a brand new "battle-scar" gracing his head.

_Damn. Just when it was getting interesting too..._she thought when she realized that she had put the monk out of commission for at least an hour or so.

* * *

It was official now. Kagome was lost beyond lost. She was just glad that she hadn't accidentally wandered straight into the dungeons, though with how her luck was going, she had better not jinx herself. 

She had managed to get this far only because she could sense the auras of incoming servants and had used some of her miko abilities in order to make out very blurred outlines of which direction they were coming from and then hide. However, doing that used up a lot of her energy and—considering she was still recovering from a possible fatal illness—she didn't have a lot of energy to spare. Add that to the fact that she was still under the protection of her cloaking spell and that equals one exhausted, fatigued, invisible and depressed woman traveling the murky depths of an ominous edifice. Probably not a good thing.

_Alrighty then...Left, right, or straight?_ she contemplated as she stood before the three-way fork. She had used the last vestiges of her spiritual powers to see the three paths but now she had nothing left in her. She even had to drop her cloaking spell to conserve energy. But that also meant that anyone who saw her now would drag her back into that boring little hell-hole known as her room.

And she'll be damned if she went without a fight.

Then again, her main concern right now was to get herself un-lost before she fainted in the deepest chambers and everybody forgot about her. Just when she was about to give up and call for help, a sudden burst of potent energy registered on her mind before disappearing just as quickly. But that short exposure was all she needed to find her way to the source.

"Left then," she mumbled with a smirk as she ascended the flight of steps.

* * *

Inuyasha was still in the process of mumbling the longest string of curses ever uttered in human—or youkai or hanyou—history when the scent he was searching for hit him like a wet slap across the face.

Well, more like a slap with a wet and very fragrant piece of cloth that smelled like an enticing mix of jasmine green tea and the fresh mountain air of newly melted snow. Despite the hint of sickness that fringed the edges of it, Inuyasha found that the scent was tantalizing his senses and he longed to take a deeper breath.

_Snap out of it! She doesn't smell _that _good..._he berated himself.

Shaking his head clear of those unwelcome thoughts, he bounded towards the source of the smell and soon found—to his horror—that it was emitted from the west wing of his castle. After swearing a couple more choice and colorful words, the hanyou picked up his speed to intercept the girl before she messed up his life any more than she already had just by showing up.

* * *

Kagome shivered as she made her way slowly up the longest flight of stairs she had ever ascended and began to wonder vaguely whether or not it was a trick staircase that never ended. It certainly seemed so to her wearied mind and fatigued body. 

There was something in the air here that was somewhat disturbing. She couldn't quite tell if the power was malevolent or benign for it seemed to be both at the same time. At one moment, the evil seemed to surface and her skin would tingle with apprehension. But then the corrupt feeling would recede and a warm fluttering would flow throughout her body, almost as if it meant to heal her of her lethargy.

Even then, the atmosphere was thick with tension and it felt as though she were pushing against the tide of the ocean with every step.

Then, it was gone.

It was so sudden that she nearly stumbled on the next steps because of the force she had to use earlier to get her through the resistance. Frowning with slight confusion, the miko took a step back and immediately felt the effects of being drawn into a tidal wave. Then she stepped forward again and—once again—the air seemed to give way as she could breathe freely without the added pressure of something on her lungs.

"That's...odd..."

But, perhaps it was because the residues of her hypothermia were still present, or perhaps it was because of the exhaustion that came with working her body too early, or it might have even been because of her insatiable curiosity about the 'never-ending stairway,' but whatever it was, she stuffed the discovery into a little niche in the back of her mind as she continued up the granite steps.

Her stubbornness did not go un-rewarded, however.

Just when she thought she could climb no more, the flight of stairs ended, and she lurched forward unbalanced as she had expected another step to follow. Luckily for her, Kagome caught herself on the wall and managed to keep herself from a meeting with the floor and her face.

"Well, that was close."

She cocked her head when she suddenly felt the presence of another power. This one was neutral, neither evil nor good. It was just simply there. Yet she could sense that the underlying backbone of this power was a spell used for curses. And a strong one at that.

Her curiosity piqued once more, she made her way towards the unknown source. So enraptured in her quest was she that she completely missed the aura of one not-so-happy half-demon coming her way. Like before, she placed her hands in front of her to avoid crashing into anything that might break a bone, as she took slow and careful steps.

However, she was definitely not expecting it when her hands found their way to a firm and sturdy torso. Not really knowing what it was that she walked into, she ran her palm along a muscled stomach and was in the process of poking a solid mass of steely muscle when a rough voice interrupted her wonderings.

"Are you done yet or am I gonna have to kick you out for sexual harassment?"

Startled and far more embarrassed than anyone ought to ever feel, Kagome jumped back in surprise. Unfortunately, she had forgotten that she was still close to the edge of the stairway since she hadn't moved very quickly and soon found herself teetering along the top step like she was in slow motion. She swung her arms around fruitlessly to regain her balance, but to no avail.

Her body tilted further back and she would later recall that the only thought that ran through her mind at that instant was whether or not the fall would rattle something in her head and return her eyesight to her. That was, of course, if she even survived the tumble down hundreds of steps.

Thus, she braced herself for the impact and clenched her eyes shut—despite the fact that she couldn't see anything—out of pure habit. She fell, but not onto the hard stone flights like she had expected. Instead, her back collided with someone's arm and she soon felt the other snake around her waist to prevent her from falling to an untimely—and rather painful—death.

Kagome opened her eyes and was slightly surprised when she was met with pitch black, until she remembered that she was supposed to be blind. Damn. She panted heavily in her savior's arms as she tried to regain her breath.

It wasn't every day she faced possible death to find herself in the arms of a very well-endowed man. Of course, it also wasn't every day that she found a man capable of such foul and rude language as this one.

"You stupid bitch! Are you really trying to get yourself killed? Damn, some people have no brains in their head."

Her rich brown eyes, though covered with a film of cloudy gray, narrowed dangerously and her rescuer immediately found himself wondering which way was the quickest exit. With an eerily calm and steady voice that spooked even herself, Kagome ground out between clenched teeth, "I am not a bitch. I am not trying to get myself killed. I have more brains in my head than certain people here whose heads denser than lead. Thank you for saving me, but would you please let me go now?"

More than a little shocked by the girl's hostility, Inuyasha immediately let go and backed away. Something about the way she spoke and the manner in which she held herself caused even the hanyou—regardless of his lack of survival instincts—to be wary of her. He watched her make her way slowly down the hall with his curious golden eyes and wondered how such a helpless wench could hold so much authority. Over _him_, not to mention.

That lasted a full five seconds before he realized that she shouldn't and _didn't_ have any authority over him. She was a guest—no, a trespasser—on his property which gave him the right to kick her out whenever he wanted. That is, unless he wanted a mob of angry, invisible servants lynching him after an equally enraged demon slayer and monk beat the crap out of him for missing probably the only he'll ever get to break the curse.

But really, she had no right to go barging around his home and being so rude, ignoring the fact that he probably started it all. Speaking of which, that was what he had come up here for was to stop the girl from touching anything she shouldn't. And right now, said girl was getting far too close to a certain item that he would much rather she stay far, far away from.

Thus, without wasting another breath, Inuyasha chased down the girl—which wasn't too hard since she had barely gained three meters or so—and took hold of her arm with a little more force than he had meant to.

"Oi bitch, get back here. You can't just go running around my house like that."

Kagome whirled around instantly and turned those cold, unseeing eyes on him. Inuyasha felt a tingle of apprehension shoot through his spine—a sure sign of danger—but could not figure out what was causing it. Surely not the girl. She was only a human wench after all. The perplexed man just couldn't shake the feeling that she was much more than what she seemed.

However, his musings were cut short when he noticed something other than anger prickling in her eyes. Something that looked akin to fear but not quite. How she could still project her feelings through her eyes when she was blind, Inuyasha had no idea.

It was then that he noticed the metallic stink of drawn blood. Blood that held hints of jasmine and melted snow.

_Ah shit!_ he yelped in his mind while letting go of the girl's bleeding arm and staring at his claws in horror.

Well, that was definitely not the way to go if he wanted to break the curse.

She showed no signs that she even felt the crimson liquid trickling down her elbow and onto the floor. She merely kept her eyes focused on his face by some miracle as she had no idea what his height was.

Trying to break the silence, Inuyasha blurted out the first thing that came to his mind that seemed to make relative sense—a habit that had often gotten him into much more trouble than help. "Damn it bitch, quit giving me that look. It's pretty bad when you can freak out a half-demon. The west wing is forbidden to anyone but me so get the hell out of here."

Noticing that she was cradling her arm in her other, he continued on his crusade of unwise words. "Come on, it's not that bad. It's just a little scratch. It's not like I meant to kill you or anything. Damn, humans are weak."

Kagome looked at him incredulously and shook her head, almost as if saying there was no hope for him. "You're an ass, you know that? An ass and a complete jerk."

Too upset with the hanyou to investigate the power source any longer, Kagome headed for the steps and—to Inuyasha—seemed to walk down the flight with exaggerated slow steps, though most likely it was only due to the fact that she couldn't see where she was stepping.

As her figure disappeared, Inuyasha breathed a sigh of relief.

Well, that threat was gone but now his chances of breaking the curse now stood at none to none. What a great day this was...

* * *

A/N: Time for some shameless advertising. 

I would love it if peoples reading this (after reviewing...) would go on over and read my two one-shots (and review). It would just make my day. I'll probably have a songfic (my first one) posted between my next update for this story.

Kay, time to sleep.


	7. Lost Again?

**A/N**: Well, this is probably the last chapter I'll be able to post for a while. Maybe a month or so. Like I said earlier, I'm moving to Shanghai and everything is a really big mess right now. I gotta pack everything and keep up my grades in school and it's really taking its toll on me. Writing is my means of unwinding but I really don't have the time to unwind, so...yeah. Anyway...Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I'm too worn out and stressed out to own Inuyasha. Not sure that makes sense, but I don't really care right now...

* * *

**Chapter Seven: Lost Again?**

_5...4...3...2...1...and..._

"Lady Kagome, is there anything we can do for you?" asked the timid female voice, right on time.

"No, Nazuna. I'm quite alright," replied Kagome with a terse smile plastered on her face. It had already been a week since her adventure roaming around the castle, and she was quickly getting bored out of her mind. It was nice talking with Sango, and she found that she had begun to look forward to their heart-to-hearts. It was even pleasant speaking with Miroku when he didn't try any of his usual antics.

In fact, it was usually when Sango wasn't around. For some reason, Kagome found that Miroku only tried to touch her when the demon slayer was with him. Wait, no scratch that. He usually only tried to touch Sango.

_I wonder why..._she thought with a knowing smirk. In her village, Kagome wasn't just known as the shrine priestess, but also as a renowned—if not infamous—matchmaker. Surprisingly enough, she was pretty good at it and quite sneaky about it.

You know what they say, "Those who can't wed, match."

After Inuyasha had royally pissed her off—though she wasn't really as angry as she made herself out to be, she had been practically tackled by Sango, nearly groped by Miroku—she had smacked him and told him that she castrate him if he tried it again, much to Sango's amusement—before being "escorted" back to her room. Since then, a servant had been checking up on her needs every so often.

Yeah right, more like to make sure she didn't try to run through the castle unguided again. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate being pampered, but when servants were asking if they could do anything for her every five minutes, a line must be drawn.

"Oh, alright then," replied the servant girl, disappointment lining her voice bringing Kagome back into reality. Kagome's curiosity perked as she knew no one who was ever disappointed to hear that they didn't have to do anything.

"Aaactually, can I ask you a question?" she asked, trying to find a subtle way to gather more information on the unknown power.

"Certainly, Lady Kagome."

"Do you know what's in the west wing?"

_Ooo, that was anything _but _subtle. Smooth, Kagome, smooth._

She could just picture the accompanying face-vault that went with the loud thud that had ensued.

"Uh...Nazuna? Are you okay?"

The blind miko listened with part worry and part amusement as the servant girl brushed herself off and replied--to her credit--in a only slightly noticeable quivering in her voice, "O-of course. I'm fine. Thank you for your concern. I'll be going now, Lady Kagome."

And before Kagome could say anything further about how she never answered her question, Nazuna was out the door and down the hall.

"That went well..." she mumbled as she resumed her earlier activities of, uh...wait, what was she doing again? It seemed like her memory had been fading quite rapidly lately.

She scratched her temple in slight confusion before she snapped her fingers, her face brightening as she finally remembered. Thinking, that's what she was doing. Thinking of a way to dodge the five-minute servants.

The gears in her head spun as she tried to think of a way to investigate the grounds further, especially since that last excursion had stirred up quite a fuss in her badly organized mind. There had to be _some_ way to go about unnoticed. Invisibility hadn't worked too well since it was a bit too draining. Besides, the servants would go berserk when they found that she wasn't there.

But what if they didn't know she was gone?

The corners of her lips pulled up in a mischievous grin as she proceeded to work out the details.

* * *

"Inuyasha, how long do you plan on keeping Lady Kagome captive in her own room?" questioned Miroku, eyeing the hanyou with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

That's never a good sign.

"The hell are you talking about, monk?"

Miroku just laughed softly, wondering if his friend was truly as dense as he made himself out to be. "You don't truly think that keeping her locked up in her room will help you win her affections, do you?"

"And you don't think touching Sango's ass all the time will make her fall in love with you, do you?" he snapped back viciously.

The monk's expression darkened and Inuyasha immediately flinched. Though he did not agree with Miroku's excuse for doing what he did, he also knew he was adamant in his beliefs—however twisted they seemed to him.

"I will not comment on that. You know as well as I do why I do the things I do," he replied in an even though slightly taut voice.

"Keh, whatever..." he mumbled in response a little ashamed with himself that he had been so callous. Too late now though.

Miroku shook his head and sighed. That was as close to an apology as he'll ever get from this stubborn fool. Deciding whether or not to let Inuyasha off the hook, he finally chose not to and asked, "Do you wish to have my assistance in courting Lady Kagome?"

Inuyasha growled, "I don't need any assistance cause I'm not gonna court her!"

"And why might that be?"

"Cause she's a stubborn bitch that's too damn stupid for her own good and she has no manners and has a bad attitude and doesn't know how to stay put in one place and she stinks," he replied simply.

Miroku arched an eyebrow at him. "Inuyasha, I must say, that is quite an accurate description of yourself, but I thought you were supposed to be talking about Lady Kagome?"

"I was, you damn lech."

"No, I could have sworn that you were talking about yourself except for the part where you're not female, although that is questionable."

"No, if I was female, then I would have already been groped by you."

They both blanched at the disturbing thought and quickly changed the subject.

"Seriously, Inuyasha. We both know how much—or rather how little—time we have before the curse...runs its course. And while I hate to make you woo someone that looks so much alike to a certain priestess, I must also remind you how many lives are at stake here. I myself don't care for my own life as I would have died in a couple years regardless of this curse from the hole that is my right hand. But what about everyone else? Sango, Kohaku, Shippo, and even all the servants—despite a select few's nosinesss—deserve a chance to live a life outside the castle. And while you may argue that the servants' fates were tied to this land's that still doesn't give you the right to endanger the two demon slayers and young kitsune. You are not playing with just your own life here."

The hanyou just avoided eye contact as he realized that, as much as he hated to admit it, Miroku was right. Even if nothing may result from it, he still had to give it a try. It was the least he could do since he was the one that got everyone in this mess in the first place.

Meanwhile, the monk watched with growing anticipation as he watched Inuyasha's resolve crumbling away. That was far easier than he had expected. Now if only he could keep Inuyasha from doing anything too stupid...

_A difficult task indeed,_ he noted dryly.

"Fine."

"What's that?" For once, Miroku honestly hadn't heard what the silver-maned man had said but Inuyasha growled, certain that the monk was just mocking him.

"I said, 'Fine' dammit!

"Good. First we must work on your appalling manners."

"What's wrong with my manners?" questioned Inuyasha indignantly.

When Miroku looked to see if he was joking, he was met with pure honestly and it was all he could do to prevent himself from smacking his own head. "Dear God, this is going to take longer than I expected...You would think that a prince would have learned some semblance of manners over the course of the years..."

* * *

"Lady Kagome? Are you there?" Nazuna slipped into the room looking around for the blind girl. She smiled softly when she saw a big bundle of blankets on the bed and quietly backed out of the room. _She must be asleep, the poor girl. I better tell the others not to bother her._

* * *

"I need to start keeping count of how many times I've gotten lost in the past two weeks. This is just ridiculous!" Kagome grumbled to herself as she—once again—tried to find her way through the castle.

For some reason, the power that she had felt pulsate through her body only a week earlier had now disappeared. Or rather, not disappeared, but grew so faint that she could no longer pinpoint the exact location since it felt like it was coming from all directions. And that was why she couldn't find her way back to the forbidden west wing and was currently lost.

Damn her cursed sense of direction—or rather lack of.

Just when she was about to give up and shout for help, Kagome—in her inattentiveness—waked straight into a hard, wooden something.

"Ah crap, that hurt," she grimaced as she rubbed her offended nose.

As soon as the stinging stopped, however, she reached out and felt for whatever it was that she had walked into. A couple moment's later, she deduced that it was actually a set of double-doors though where it led to, she knew not. In future times, Kagome would say that there something in that room that just compelled her to slowly push the doors open and step in. However, right now, she simply believed that it was her own damned curiosity—the very same curiosity that got her in so much trouble in the first place.

As soon as she stepped in, she was hit by a sudden wave of power that swept over her like a flurry of strong wind. She was almost positive that her mass of long, inky hair was being blown in all sorts of odd directions but knew at the same time that there was nothing physical to go with the gust. It hit her purely on a spiritual level and she doubted that normal humans would even be able to feel it.

It felt like the same power—or perhaps something very, very similar—as the one she felt on the steps except a lot stronger. Maybe she was closer to the source here but whatever the case, she found herself drawn to it. Before she knew what she was doing, she was in the room and searching with her miko powers. She concluded that the energy was not emanating from this room and was about to step out again when an all-too familiar voice behind her stopped her in her tracks.

"What the hell are doing in here, bitch?"

_Damn it! Caught again..._

* * *

Inuyasha was staring at Kagome with curious eyes. After his little talk with Miroku, Inuyasha had finally decided that—despite how much he disliked the idea—he would try to win the girl's affections.

Lord, that sounded cheesy...

Thus, after being "disciplined" in the way of women—though he very much doubted that the information he had collected was all that accurate...after all, it's Miroku we're talking about here, the universal 'slap-me-because-I'm-dumb-and-just-tried-to-grope-your-ass' punching bag—Inuyasha decided that he would head to the library to try and look up any loopholes on the curse.

While he would take fighting brute force against brute force over researching any day, he knew that this was not something that could be solved by fighting. After all, in order to fight, he would need to know just exactly what he was dealing with and right now, he hadn't the faintest clue as to how to break the curse without having to break the curse _her_ way.

_Stupid priestesses with their stupid curses..._he growled bitterly in his mind.

However, his thoughts came to a complete stop when he saw his guest in the middle of his library. He was going to say something right away, but suddenly stopped when he took note of the intense and slightly dreamy expression on the girl's face.

Curious (_Stupid curiosity_, he thought viciously), he watched as she walked further into the room and lifted her hands as if she was looking for something. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be odd since she _was_ blind, but it looked as if her hands were actually running over shelves and over crevices. Almost like she was really touching them when there was no possible way.

Her face was passive and calm but her concentration was evident.

And Inuyasha couldn't help but look at her in a little wonder. He had at first thought that she was the exact replica of a certain someone, but the more he saw of this blind girl, the more differences he distinguished. There was still a notable semblance, of that there was no doubt, but it was not nearly as much as he initially thought.

Kagome's obsidian curls hung softly down her shoulders and framed her sick-induced pale face—though her sickness was hardly perceptible now—and her creamy brown eyes were closed, her thick black eyelashes nearly touching her cheeks. She was wan now, but he could just imagine a rosy tint always adorning her cheeks, whether she was embarrassed or not.

Inuyasha had to admit that the innocence that radiated from her was warming and that she _was _quite attractive, in a modest kind of way. Her features weren't anything spectacular—save her eyes, perhaps—but they melded well together and there was a certain gentleness in her mien. Yet there was an intense look of absorption in her that alerted him to a sharper edge in her personality.

A perfect balance between stubborn determination and knowing when to yield. At one time, Inuyasha would have thought this to be a winning combination. It helped that she didn't look too bad, either.

_Whoa, whoa, whoa! What am I thinking? Bad thoughts, bad thoughts! _he reprimanded himself. Thus, in his own odd way of thinking, he did the only thing that he knew to do under these circumstances. Be rude.

"What the hell are you doing in here, bitch?"

He inwardly winced and berated himself, _When are you going to learn?_

However, to his surprise, other than looking a bit embarrassed—her cheeks reddening to the exact color he had imagined earlier—and a little miffed at being interrupted at whatever she was doing, Kagome was not at all affected by his offensiveness.

"Getting myself un-lost," she responded nonchalantly. "Well, at least trying to, anyway. What are you doing here?"

"What the hell does it look like I'm doing? I'm in the library, aren't I?" he snapped back, completely unaware of what he said—like usual—until it was too late.

_Just shut the hell up, idiot! God, somebody needs to sew my lips shut..._

Kagome looked slightly saddened but seemed to be determined not to let her misgivings show through. "Hm...So we're in library? I used to love reading. Used to read any scroll I could get my hands on. Is this library big?"

Too surprised by her reaction—or lack of one—and still trying to stay on the girl's good side, Inuyasha responded gruffly but without the usual sarcasm for once. "Uh, sure, I guess. I don't come in here too much. Usually it's just the idiot monk."

One eyebrow rose in amusement. "Miroku, you mean?" Inuyasha simply nodded, once again forgetting that the girl could not see. Despite that, Kagome seemed to have sensed his reply. "Why do you always add something derogative to his title? Do you have something against him?"

He shrugged and said, "I dunno. Just habit, I suppose. Still, it's not like he doesn't deserve it. He's an idiot for—" He paused and frowned. "Wait, what? Why am I telling you all this?"

She held up her fingers and began to count off. "Well, first, because I asked. Second, because I asked nicely. Third, because I want to know. Fourth, because I want you to tell me. Fifth, bec—"

"Okay, okay. I get it," Inuyasha cut in quickly before the girl could continue. "It was supposed to be a rhetorical question."

_Rhetorical? What the hell? Do I even know what the hell that means? Maybe I have a book-smart part of me that I never discovered. Sure would have come in handy back when I actually had a tutor..._ran his train of thoughts.

Kagome just smiled and replied, "I know. It's just fun to tease you."

Before he could respond, she was already out the door and out of his line of vision. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn that she had some sort of power that enabled her to cloak her movements or something.

_What an odd, odd, little bitch..._he thought as he continued on to what he had originally gone into the library to research.


	8. Story Time!

**A/N**: Wow...I have been gone for a looooong time...I wonder if anybody remembers I even exist...Anyway, now that the whole moving to Shanghai and adjusting period (three months...hehe) to a new school is all done and over with, I guess I can get back to writing again.

Anyway, I'm telling you right now that I have no way of keeping this story realistically in feudal Japan. First off, I don't know enough about feudal Japan to make even a little sense and I'm putting all this stuff from around the world and from different time periods that could not even possibly have existed in the time frame I once attempted to follow through in. So…the setting will still be in feudal times but it's going to be one big smush of different cultures and times. Does this really affect the story? Probably not too much. This is just so that people won't be confused if I throw in something European from the 1500s which is what I did in this chapter...hehe…

Disclaimer: Still don't own it.

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**Chapter Eight: Story Time!**

_That was close. I didn't think I'd be able to make it out of there without him realizing that I had snuck out. Heck, I don't think he even realized that I was there at all! He seemed to be in such a daze. I wonder what about? _

_Wait, why do I care? _

'_Cause I'm curious. _

_Curiosity killed the cat._

_But I'm not a cat._

_It's just an expression._

…_But I'm still not a cat…_

_Ack! What's wrong with me? I'm arguing with myself!_

_Oh well, just be thankful that I was able to get out of there without having been sent back to my room immediately..._

_Not like I didn't head back right after anyway..._

And thus Kagome's thoughts battled back and forth as she tossed and turned on her bed, trying to catch at least a decent amount of rest before another day of ceaseless plotting and wandering.

However, sleep was slow in coming. In fact, she wondered if it was coming to visit tonight at all. It sure didn't seem like it would. At last, letting out a frustrated growl of annoyance, Kagome struggled out from beneath her covers and slipped out of her room, intent on finding _something_ to do.

Unfortunately for her—or fortunately since it saved her from another self-guided tour of the castle—she then remembered that the only room she knew the way to was the library. Considering she wouldn't be able to read anything at all because of her condition, a library would _not_ do her much good at this point in time. Still, with a sigh of resignation, Kagome headed there anyway. Who knows? Maybe just a change in setting will have sleep catch up to her faster. Not much she could do anyway.

She pushed the door open again and almost jumped when a gruff voice greeted her. "What the hell are you doing up still?"

"Ah!" She stumbled backwards and would have fallen had Inuyasha not caught her just before her behind met the marble floor. Her breathing hitched as she held a hand over her racing heart. "God, Inuyasha! Do you enjoy giving people heart attacks?"

"Yeah, you're welcome," he replied as he righted the girl, a little shamefully thankful that she was blind so that she wouldn't see the brilliant crimson his cheeks had turned when her lips had unknowingly come millimeters away from his.

Kagome smiled and mockingly rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Your Majesty, for almost dirtying your floor with my presence. And thank you for risking your superiority by catching one as lowly as I."

"Feh. Whatever."

"You really don't have much of a vocabulary, do you?"

"Whatever," he slipped out before he could retrieve it. Still, he hoped that maybe Kagome had missed his slip.

Yeah, right.

The miko burst out laughing at Inuyasha's expense but he couldn't help the corners of his lips from tugging upwards. She was still so good-natured despite the situation she was in. It took Kagome a couple of minutes to recover although it really wasn't all that funny. She supposed it was just because she hadn't had a good laugh in a while. Somehow, Inuyasha always managed to either bring out the worst in her or the best.

"I'm sorry, Inuyasha. I guess I'm suffering from the effects of sleep depravity."

"Then what are you doing up still? In fact, you should be in your room. The hell you doing in the library? It's not like you can read anyway."

Yup, he was definitely about to bring out the worst. Any mirth she had felt before was completely erased as she replied coldly, "I can read, thank you very much. I just can't see. I could ask you the same question. Hell, I didn't even know you _could_ read. I bet even Koga could read more than you can."

_Why did I just bring up Koga?_ wondered the tiny voice in the back of her mind.

"The hell do you know? Wait…did you just say Koga? How the hell do you know that bastard?"

"What do you care? But if you must know, Koga is my friend…" _Not really…more like an annoying bugger who doesn't know what the word 'no' means…_she thought. "Wait, how do _you_ know Koga?"

"I've known him for longer than you've been alive, little girl."

"What? How is that possible? Koga's not that much older than me…at least I think…I can't say the same for you though, seeing as I've never seen you before."

"I'm a half demon. Of course I age slower than mere humans. And I take it that the bastard didn't tell you that he's a wolf demon?"

_What?! Koga is a demon? How is that possible? _

"No way. I should have been able to—" she caught herself just in time to not give herself away.

However, Inuyasha wasn't about to let her off quite so easily. "To what?"

Her mind quickly churning, she questioned with as innocent look as she could muster, "Two what? I didn't say anything about having two of anything."

"What?"

"That's what I asked you!"

Inuyasha growled. This girl was more frustrating than she was worth.

"Never mind," he ground out through tightly clenched teeth.

"So…how old exactly are you?" Kagome questioned after a moment of silence on her part and angry breathing on his.

"Uh, I think I'm turning two hundred twenty this year. I can't remember."

"What? Wow, you're old."

Inuyasha just scoffed in response. "You humans just age too quickly."

"Sure. Whatever you say…"

Knowing that Kagome couldn't see his childish antics, Inuyasha stuck out his tongue at her and scowled. It was amazing how aggravating one human wench could be. He was determined not to talk to her anymore after finding that she had a way of twisting his words quite effectively, but he couldn't help his curiosity from getting the better of him.

"So what did you say you were doing in here again?"

"I didn't. I couldn't fall asleep is all." She shrugged. "How about you? I didn't expect the Lord and Master of this castle to be up still."

_Hah…more like jail, if you ask me_, he scoffed inwardly.

"What's it matter to you?" he retorted rudely.

"I was just curious. You don't have to be so snappy about it."

"Yeah, well, you shouldn't be so damn nosy."

"You really have a serious lack of vocabulary."

"And you have a serious problem of snooping around."

"You already said that. Or something to that degree anyway."

"Why are you so damn irritating?"

"Why are you so darn irritable?"

Inuyasha snarled at her teasing smirk and threw his hands up in the air. If this girl was his last chance at breaking the curse, he'd rather _not_ go through the trouble.

"Damn it, will you just shut the hell up and go back to your freakin' room?"

Kagome's demeanor changed immediately and Inuyasha blinked in surprise at the sudden fear he detected in her scent, though fear of what, he wasn't quite sure.

"Wait, wait. No…I'll be good, promise. Just don't make me rot away in there with nothing to do but to let my mind run in useless circles. I swear that if I stay there one more minute, I'm gonna go insane. Please?"

He nearly laughed aloud when he heard her plea. With the fear she had abruptly emitted, he was sure that it was something bad. Instead, she was just afraid of being locked up.

_I guess that's just like me and this freakin' hell-hole…I still don't know how I managed to stay sane._

However, as 'understanding' as he might have been of her situation, Inuyasha was not one to let up an opportunity to taunt anyone. "Aren't you crazy already? What difference does going back to your room make?"

"Difference is that going back to that room with servants 'checking' up on me every five minutes will cause severe depression and severe depression will lead to craziness and that craziness will eventually result in one dead girl in one of your guest rooms and I'm sure you don't want that," she replied with all seriousness.

"Oh…" was all he could say. He hadn't expected her to take his question seriously and it had surprised him that she didn't actually deny that she was crazy…The problem was that he couldn't detect anything in her scent that told him that she was joking. That in itself was a little disturbing.

* * *

"God, Inuyasha is an idiot!" exclaimed Miroku softly as he spied on the pair in the library through means of a well-placed connecting door hidden between two shelves.

"Shh! Inuyasha can hear you!" whispered Sango next to him, despite her reservations about his wandering hands. It was simply too difficult to pass up an opportunity to see the—hopefully—blossoming relationship between hanyou and girl. It really was quite amusing to watch Inuyasha with her. It wasn't every day someone other than herself and the monk dared to talk back to him in the fashion that Kagome did and even then, they weren't nearly as bold as she was. But the most amazing thing was not the way in which she dealt with his rudeness, but in the subdued stupor that Inuyasha seemed to have fallen into. Sango had never seen him not lash out for such a long period of time.

Then again, she had never seen anyone quite as good at remaining good-natured when dealing with Inuyasha as Kagome was.

Her eye began to twitch as she felt a familiar appendage sneak towards a more private part of her body. "Miroku," she began in a deceptively sweet tone of voice.

"Yes, Sango, my dear?" replied the monk completely oblivious to his impending doom.

"Hands off," she stated simply as she wrenched his arm behind his back.

"Ow, ow, ow….Sango! I thought you said that Inuyasha will hear us!"

"Yeah, and guess what? I'd rather have him hear us than to have you grope me."

* * *

Inuyasha's versatile ears swiveled back and forth as he tried to pinpoint the location of the slight scuffle he had heard. However, before he could further wonder about the noise, Kagome's soft voice floated into his ear canal.

"Can you read me a story?" she asked shyly and quite randomly.

Inuyasha stared at her for a while as his mind tried to decipher what she had just said. She wanted him to read to her? Why did that sound so…odd? and strangely welcome too. Hm…better not dwell on the latter thought too much…

"You want me to what?"

"Read me a story. I would read myself but seeing as I can't see…" she trailed off.

"Why the hell do you want me to read you a story?"

"Honestly, I don't know. Maybe it's nice just to know that I'm not alone here. It's easy to think that when you can't see anyone around. So please? If not anything else, do it just so I leave you alone?"

Inuyasha sighed. Of all the people to stumble into his castle, why did it have to be this particular girl whose mood was about as stable as the carriage Miroku tried to build a couple years back? But that wasn't even the worst part. Worse of all was that he was actually putting her request into consideration. Now _that_ was a frightening thought.

"I'm not gonna go to bed until you do," she warned.

"And do I care if you go to bed?" he muttered under his breath.

However, her loss of one sense honed her other senses and she replied, "Of course you do. Otherwise I wouldn't be asking you."

Inuyasha had to restrain himself from either banging his head against a wall or banging Kagome's head against the wall. Not only was this girl temperamental, she was also delusional. Of all the many things that she had said upon awakening, he could possibly put together only about a couple coherent and understandable sentences. Everything else was either plain randomness or of complete irrelevance.

"I give up. You're bloody insane, you know that?" he growled.

"Of course I am. So would anyone else who happens to stumble into an enchanted castle in the middle of the night via the back of an inflatable demon cat only to fall victim to hypothermia after being plastered in a full-body cast by muddy leaves and wakes to find that she's lost her vision as well as what little semblance of sanity she had to begin with, not to mention the master of the castle just happens to be an over-two hundred year old hanyou with manners equivalent to those of a six-year old. Yup, I'm insane. Nice to meet you, too."

There goes her mood again. How can someone really be _that_ fickle? Really though, how is someone supposed to reply to that?

"Dammit. Fine. I'll read you a freaking story."

He was royally pissed off, but somehow the radiating smile that suddenly replaced her sullen expression wiped the annoyance and irritation from his mind. Now it was more of an annoyance at how easily and how quickly her expressions could reduce him to an obedient—reluctant, but not as reluctant as he had hoped—puppy listening to her beck and call. Annoyance, too, at the suddenly quickening speed of his cardiac muscle when she brushed a little too closely past him.

"Thank you, thankyouthankyou! Do you have somewhere comfy to sit in here?"

"Yeah, it's called the floor."

"Stupid smart-ass."

"That's an oxymoron, you know." _Whoa…another big word…_

"Wow…I guess your vocabulary range is bigger than I thought," said Kagome, unknowingly mirroring Inuyasha's thoughts. Not that he would tell _her_ that…

"Just find a stupid spot and sit."

Kagome shrugged and sat down right where she was standing previously. Inuyasha growled and stalked over to the closest shelf and grabbed a random book. He glared at the blind girl for putting him through this and flopped down cross-legged across from her.

_Well, let's see what I grabbed here…_

He flipped open the book and began to read. "Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare?! Dammit! Of all the books I could have snatched, I grabbed Romeo and Juliet? Hell no! I am _not_ reading this."

Inuyasha tried to stand but Kagome held him back. "Oh no, you don't. You grabbed it. You read it."

"B-but…"

"No buts!"

"It's Romeo and Juliet! It's a damn love story that makes no sense at all and they're all morons!"

"…"

Inuyasha tried to decipher the meaning of her sudden silence. Trying to read _her_ was more difficult than any book he had ever read in his life. "Uh…you didn't like the play, did you?"

"Honestly, not in particular. You're right. They _are_ all morons. But…you've actually read this before?" she asked incredulously.

"…Yeah…Unfortunately…"

"Hmm."

Inuyasha's eyebrows rose. "So…does this mean I don't have to read it?"

Kagome lips pulled up in an amused smile but falsely sweet smile. "No, it just means that I'll have more fun listening to you read this through a second time."

"Damn…You're a freaking sadist."

"Yes I am," she replied all too cheerily.

Inuyasha had no idea why he was playing along with her. There was really no reason why he actually _had_ to slave through the play again, but for some reason, he couldn't find a reason _not_ to, either. Thus, it was with great confusion on his part that he began to read.

"Prologue."

* * *

A/N: Real quick, I have nothing against Shakespeare. In fact, I love most of his stuff. However, I did find the whole Romeo and Juliet play quite pathetic. I mean, they're kids younger than I am (though I know…the whole marriage age and all that was a lot younger as well back then) that fall in love at first sight. (I don't believe in love at first sight, btw. Lust at first sight, yes. Feeling of connection at first sight, why not? But love, no. Love is more of a built relationship between people. But, I better just shut up before I start rattling some more…) Then they go and elope after talking for about a total of like ten minutes. Then they go and fake death and end up really committing suicide…yadayadaya. I don't know. Just never really liked it. Now Hamlet…now _that_ is a good play. Filled with intrigue and who's spying who and who wants to kill who…all that good stuff. 

Anyway…I guess I'm making up for months of non-rambling here…Hopefully the next chapter will not be such a killer to get through.


	9. Dreams and Tears

**A/N:** Oh snap. I haven't updated in over 2 years on this thing. That's pretty pathetic. In the course of two years, I've graduated from high school and am now a first-year English major/Pre-med (yes, we do exist).

Just so you know, however, I have been working on this for the last two years. I have bits and pieces of later parts finished but I just couldn't seem to get this chapter down. I went through and made minor revisions on general grammar and spelling errors, but I do eventually want to make a major purge and fix everything. Until then, this is what y'all stuck with. But, now that I have managed to get this out of my system, I should think that it won't take me another 2 years to update again.

I really wanted to update on Valentine's day cause that would make it exactly 2 years since my last update, but I couldn't get the chapter finished by then. Thus, today is also a good day to update because it's my birthday!! So yeah, happy birthday to me. I don't want much, just a couple of reviews. P Okay, enough talking. Here's chapter 9.

Disclaimer: Two years later and I still don't own a thing.

* * *

**  
**

**Chapter Nine: Dreams and Tears**

"Stupid wench…She couldn't even make it through the first act. I thought she said she couldn't sleep…" muttered Inuyasha quietly, but not entirely unkindly as he carried Kagome back to her room.

The girl's unruly hair somehow managed to make its way to Inuyasha's face and he contorted his countenance as he tried to stifle a sneeze. He sighed when the tickling sensation finally went away. So much trouble for someone so small. Yet, despite himself, he couldn't help the gentle smile that stole across his strong features when her eyes fluttered in her sleep and she mumbled something incoherent, like everything else she said even when she was awake.

As he placed her gingerly onto her bed and tucked her in—_where had the motherly instincts suddenly come from? _he wondered—he was a bit shameful that he was actually a little relieved that she was blind. After all, since she was blind, she couldn't see the claws or the fangs. She couldn't see the dog ears that were perched atop his head. She couldn't see his non-human features. He wished he could say that he didn't care if she _could_ see, but it was a lie. Somehow, in the few short days she had been here, she had managed to dig her way under his skin. Of course, it wasn't as if he was in _love_ or anything. She was a guest in his house and she would be treated as such, no more no less.

Unconsciously, his arm extended as he gently traced the contour of her face. She whimpered as if troubled and he quickly withdrew his hand. "Don't go! I don't understand…" she murmured with great distress before falling silent.

Inuyasha was torn between waking her and shaking some sense into her or waking her with the unreasonable desire to hold her in order to chase away whatever nightmares she may have been having. But, in the end he did neither as he quietly exited her room with quite a bit to think about.

* * *

"_Are you certain that this is what you desire, young Kagome?"_

_Her response was firm as she knelt before her mentor and teacher. "Yes."_

"_Will ye then swear that ye will never take off this mask or else face the consequences of certain death?"_

"_Yes."_

_Kaede nodded in satisfaction as she placed the leather mask upon the fifteen-year-old Kagome's face for the first time. "Then I give unto you this blessing and command as was bestowed upon me by my elder sister the day that she died: Never are you to remove this mask for fear of your very life. Only if a man is willing to give his life to you may you remove it. Never shall a drop of tear fall from your eyes for the account of a man or else face the rest of your life without your powers. May your hearts be hardened to those who wish to gain your love. May you never fall into the same deceit that Kikyo has for all men are loathsome brutes who are undeserving of our affections. I bid you to pass this on to all those who succeed you as priestess."_

_Kaede placed her hands on Kagome's shoulders and helped her up. "Now, it is finished. You are now the priestess of this village and not me. Do not let me down, child. I know that you are capable of much."_

_Suddenly the room spun in a flurry of movement and Kagome found herself running. She didn't know what she was running from; only that she had to continue to run if she wanted to survive._

"_How dare you disobey my commandments?" boomed an authoritative voice._

"_Who's there?" Kagome called out as she continued to run._

_Then, everything stopped and there was nothing. She was left in complete darkness, almost as if she was blinded. She walked in a small circle trying to see if she could make out anything, but no, there was nothing. Nothing but pure darkness. "Hello? Is anybody there?"_

_Almost as if on cue, right as she completed her question, a flash of light flooded into the space and blinded her with brightness rather than darkness. In the midst of the light stood a figure, a figure that held an eerie resemblance to herself._

"_Who are you?" questioned Kagome._

"_That is not the question you should be asking at the present," she replied mysteriously._

"_What's that supposed to mean?"_

"_What do you think it means?"_

"_I dunno."_

_Kagome could almost swear that she saw her mirror image's eyebrow twitch slightly in annoyance, but later decided that she must have been imagining it because that small action would have nullified the image's stoic demeanor. She seemed to have decided to take a different route as she asked, "Why can you not see?"_

_Feeling a bit ignorant, Kagome answered once again, "I dunno."_

"_What are you missing?"_

"_What am I missing? Well, as of right now, I think I'm missing my mind."_

"_Insolent girl! How dare you respond in such a manner!" The voice was laced with anger, but the face showed no change. "If you are really such a fool, then you deserve to suffer a while longer."_

_With that, the figure began to float backwards as Kagome chased, fruitlessly, after it. "Hey wait! What's that supposed to mean?"_

_However, she was given no response as she was left in darkness once again._

_Damn. This was why she hated dreams. They were _soooo_ vague!_

* * *

It had been a long time since he's had this dream. In fact, he hadn't dreamed about _that_ incident for nearly twenty years now. Yet here it was haunting him again. What was the meaning of it? Was it not enough that he and his castle were doomed to die in the course of a year if he could not stop it? Inuyasha growled in frustration. Why him? What had he done that elicited such a heavy punishment? Why could he not live a normal life? Why did he have to be the bane of his friends' existence? 

He rolled out of bed and walked out onto his balcony. He peered into the horizon and breathed in deeply, allowing the light breeze to brush over him and enshroud him in its playfulness. The storm that brought Kagome to his castle had long passed, and the warm nights attested to that fact. It was still another hour or so until sunrise. Another hour until his demon blood left him.

Perhaps that was why he was so restless this night. The transformation, while painless, was always an unwelcome ordeal. It reminded him of his mixed origins, of his tainted blood, of his unworthiness to call the throne his.

What was it about his human counterpart that liked to contemplate so much?! It wasn't as if he needed to dwell anymore on the unhappy facts of his life. Yet here he was, shaken by the painful memories and cursed with these very human sentiments. Half-breed fool that he was, why bother stopping the inevitable. She would never love me, nor could he ever let go of his first love. So why bother? Why bother going through all this trouble only to result in the same end? Why would they not allow him to suffer alone and die alone?

_Oh yeah. Cause if the curse isn't broken, everyone else is dead too_, he remembered with a scowl.

The skies lightened on the eastern horizon, but it would still be a while until the sun would fully rise. This had always his favorite time of the day. It was gratifyingly peaceful and quiet almost as if all the world was asleep, which was quite nearly true. No annoying chirp of the crickets nor was there any croaking of frogs. It was completely silent. In about an hour, life would begin to emerge from its hibernating state and the hustle and bustle of everyday life would begin again, but as of right now, the world with all its unmasked splendor was his to enjoy only.

Well, his and the sobbing mess that he could hear from down the hall. With an irritated snarl, he realized that the weeping noise emanated from _her_ room. Of course. Who else would dare to interrupt his perfect morning?

Unfortunately for him, Inuyasha had never been one who could stand the tears of a woman. "She better have a good reason for crying her eyes out at this time of day," he growled menacingly as he made his way to his wayward guest's room.

* * *

She didn't know when she had started crying or even why. Well, actually, that wasn't true. She did know why. 

She had gotten up in the middle of the night, troubled by her dream and unable to sleep anymore. She'd always prescribed a cup of warm milk to parents whose children couldn't sleep, so she decided to follow her own prescription. Unfortunately, she had once again forgotten that, despite having lived in the castle for two weeks now during which she had spent most of her days stuck in her room, she had no idea which direction was the kitchen.

Too tired to risk getting lost, she had decided that if she couldn't sleep then she ought to wake up for the day and find something productive to do. She made her way to the wash basin in the corner of the room and found that it was empty of water. With a frustrated sigh, she realized she couldn't even wash her face to wake herself up because she didn't know where she could get water or where to boil it. It probably was not the best idea for her to be boiling water when blind, anyway.

Forsaking the wash basin, she was going to change out of her sleeping clothes into something more appropriate for the day until she remembered that she couldn't even see what her clothes looked like, much less dress herself. With her luck, if she tried donning a kimono on her own, she'd likely wear it inside out and tie the bows all wrong.

Thus, unable to take it any longer, she fell to her knees in the middle of her room and cried softly, not wanting to disturb the rest of the occupants of the castle with her own inadequacy.

However, she'd forgotten that a certain member of the castle—namely the Lord of it—possessed impeccable hearing and regardless of how soft her whimpering cries were, he could still hear them. As a result, moments later, one of the people Kagome did not ever want to ever see her cry burst through her door—not bothering to knock—and stood glaring down at her, before seeing the tears that stained her cheeks and her reddened eyes.

"Leave me alone," she hiccupped between sobs.

If there was any one thing about Inuyasha that differentiated him from the rest of the half-demon population, it was that he hated seeing women cry. His eyes immediately softened, and he dropped down to crouch beside her. "Hey, why are you crying?" he asked, his voice gentler than even he expected.

Kagome refused to look up. She wasn't sure if it was a matter of pride, but she simply did not want him to see her crying. "Go away."

"I'm not going anywhere until you stop your sniveling so that the rest of the world can go back to sleep," retorted Inuyasha.

Her tears paused for a moment and Inuyasha thought that maybe his tactic had worked—despite how often it normally failed. Of course, that particular idea was thrown out the window when Kagome began to bawl even louder. What was pride to her now? She couldn't do anything on her own anymore anyway. What was pride? Why should she care who she cried in front of? It wasn't as if she could really see who it was to begin with.

"Good God, woman! What the hell has gotten into you?" His eyes flattened against his head, her weeping a little too loud for his sensitive appendages to take.

"What the hell has gotten into me? You're asking _me_ what the hell has gotten into me?!" she shrieked, her sanity far gone. "I'll tell you what the hell has gotten into me. I'm blind. I can't do a thing on my own, and I feel like I'm a burden just by breathing. I've lost all vestiges of self-respect. I'm stuck in a half-demon's castle that has more staircases and freaking passages than there are in an underground cave. I can't sleep because I get stupid dreams that don't make any sense at all and that actually make me think when it's the last thing on my mind that I want to do. I'm not supposed to cry." Her hysterics died down, and she simply looked worn out and depressed.

Inuyasha simply stared at her, not sure what he should be doing. He had never been extraordinarily good at comforting people—scratch that, he was awful. Perhaps it was a good thing that he was speechless, though, as it gave the poor girl an opportunity to vent.

"Inuyasha?" she whispered, her voice cracking from her previous outburst.

"Hn?"

Without any further warning, the girl launched herself into his arms, burying her face into his chest. Surprised at her sudden action, Inuyasha fell back onto his rear, careful to keep the Kagome from falling over, however. His mouth fell open, and his eyes looked about ready to pop out. The girl latched her arms firmly around his neck and was currently soaking the front of his haori with tears.

"I feel so useless."

He was stunned that she'd be willing to show him her moment of weakness and couldn't help the warmth that saturated his heart. She wasn't holding back any of her emotions with him. Slowly, his arms found their way around her shoulders, one of his hands—no longer clawed he noted subconsciously which meant that day had already broken—soothingly running through her obsidian hair. "You're not useless," he murmured softly, his lips pressed softly against the top of her head.

Kagome found herself fighting a blush as she finally realized that she had basically thrown herself at the half-demon. His voice sounded more tender than it normally did, and she wondered if that was because he was actually trying to comfort her or if it was simply her own overly active imagination. She pulled back a little, her eyes downcast, wanting so badly to see her comforter, yet knowing all the while that she never would be able to.

Inuyasha, with his human hands, tilted her chin up and gently brushed away the wetness running down her cheeks with his thumb. The faint shadow of a smile graced his lips when he saw the blush coloring her face. She really was quite beautiful. She possessed more life, more exuberance, more color than Kikyo ever did. His mind blurred as he leaned closer to place feather light kisses upon her cheeks, wanting his touch to fend off whatever tears she had.

Kagome's brain froze and the tears immediately stemmed. A part of her wanted to slap him and slap him hard from daring to press his lips against her face, but another part of her basked in his attention. Back in the village, she'd always been careful not to allow herself to fall for any man, but here, in the least expected place at the worst possible time, she found herself desiring his touch.

_Not good, not good! _she squirmed in her mind, yet she could not move. His tender caresses left her immobile and she could not stop the shiver that ran along the length of her spine. _Wait…why is it that I can feel his lips against my cheek? Where's my mask?!_

She suddenly pushed him away and brought a hand to her face, her eyes reflecting her shock. "I know what I'm missing now!"

* * *

A/N: Alrighty, well, hope that was enjoyable. I know there's not as much humor as my other chapters, but that whole fluffiness should make up for that, right? Of course. Remember, it's my b-day today, so be nice and review!!! Thanks. 


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